Panic at the Roller Derby
by Frenchhornbook
Summary: In an alternate universe, quidditch is really roller skating and the Malfoys own the largest roller rink in all of England. With their team called the Death Eaters, they race against Dumbledore's Army for glory among the wizarding community. Draco and Harry get mixed up in the drama and have to sort out their feelings for each other while speeding to the finish. Drarry
1. Harry Potter and the Roller Rink

**I got the idea for this fic last night when I went roller skating with some of my friends last night. I think about Drarry waaay too much apparently. I'm in school right now so this won't update too often, but I am going to try to keep it to seven chapters as there were seven books and I have a lot of parallels planned. Thanks so much for reading! Don't worry about reviews although they would be nice but I check the traffic graphs for my fics so I know you guys are seeing this :)**

Chapter One: Harry Potter and the Roller Rink

"Harry, get dressed. We're going roller skating in five minutes," Uncle Vernon grunted. "Dudley needs to try out his new skates."

Harry scrubbed the last pan from breakfast with renewed urgency. "Uncle Vernon, but I don't have skates."

The old man sneered at Harry's comment as if he had known the boy would ask. "Well, you won't be able to skate then, will you?" Vernon's nose started to shake from holding his sneer so long, and he bared his teeth for added effect, showing Harry the remnants of his breakfast.

"Yes, Uncle." Harry choked down vomit-if he puked, he'd have to clean all of the plates again. He threw the last pan into the drying rack and ducked into his cupboard room to change out of his dirty pajamas into slightly cleaner jeans and a tee-shirt that was three sizes too big.

Aunt Petunia smacked the back of his head to hurry him along as she grabbed her faux gator-skin purse and strutted to the car where she waited for him to open her door. Harry slid into the back seat only to pushed to the other side by his least favorite and only cousin. Dudley grinned at Harry-the beginnings of a sneer dancing on his lips, my how he was learning from his father!

"Like my new skatessss." He sounded like a snake and spit like an ostrich. The blue wheels of the white leather spun in his greasy hands as Dudley ran them up the back of his mother's chair with such force that she rocked back and forth. He turned his attention to Harry's face and ran a trail over his nose, breaking his glasses for the second time today. Harry gave him a glare, but his face remained Dudley's private roller rink. Dudley stopped his annoyance of Harry in favor of wearing his skates as a hat and then gloves and then ear warmers all with blubbering noises coming from his mouth.

Harry took off his broken glasses and rewound the tape until they hung lop-sided on his nose again. With his glasses repaired, he could better see the dreariness of their middle-class, English suburb with its failing flowers and boring brick houses. The closer they got to the rink, the more Petunia's leg jittered.

"Are you sure we're going the right place, Vernon?" Her voice was a submissive whisper, not wanting to anger her husband.

"Don't worry, love. This is just a small traipse through the slums. The rink is like a palace. My father took me here when I was your age, Dudley."

Dudley continued lavishing his attention on his skates, making them do loop de loops in the air.

"I didn't know you skated, Vernon," Petunia tittered.

"Oh, I don't. It was a one time event. The owner's rascal was faster than me and refused to let me beat him in races, so we never went back again."

Harry rolled his eyes.

The failing flowers turned into grave-looking grass and the boring brick into drug dealer dens until a great sign rose up over a hill of garbage. Even in the morning light, the billboard shone-a myriad of pink and black with writing in red advertising "The Malfoy Manor Roller Rink." Vernon started muttering about his lost childhood as they got close enough to the sign to see the picture of the owner (the speedster who had beat Vernon) and his bombshell of a wife holding their son. Each of them stared at passerby with smiles on their faces but haughtiness in the glare of their eyes.

"Dudley, as my son, I demand that you challenge that boy on the sign there to a race and that you beat him. You will bring the Dursley name to fame!"

Dudley actually managed to stop playing with his skates long enough to nod to his father as they pulled into the parking lot, newly paved and getting more full with every minute. Vernon jerked the car to a halt and Dudley fell out in a hurry to get to the door. Harry lagged behind as the Durlseys scurried after their overanxious son.

Harry ran his fingers over the finger-printed front door. The rest of his family waited at the ticket booth with Vernon tapping his fingers on the counter, waiting to be left in. When Mrs. Malfoy got over to them, Vernon started screaming, "We don't need tickets! My son has skates and we will not be skating!" Mrs. Malfoy narrowed her eyes and took a sharp breath in as if she had just been kissed on the ear. "This way." She pointed with her middle finger and an overexaggerated flourish.

When they found a table, Dudly plopped himself down and threw his skates at Vernon, demanding tghat he "put them on right now so I can go skating with the other kids and show them how fast I am!" Vernon fumbled to catch them, but recovered from the shock in an instant, snatching Dudley's foot and shoving the skates on with extra force.

"Daddy, that hurts my foot."

"The more it hurts, the faster you'll get skating!" Vernon grunted with the effort, and Petunia shifted from foot to foot. Harry leaned against the wall of the rink and picked out the fastest skater their-Dudley's competition-in an instant.

He had bleach white and piercing blue eyes that struck Harry the moment he turned his head. He skated around the circle with the grace of a waterfall and the speed of the Concord, slowing down to show off his tricks when he got closer to the Dursleys who were creating a scene as Dudley struggled with his father. "They don't fit! You bought me the wrong skates, you stupid cow!" The fight ended with a final shove to get the second skate on and Dudley was off.

He was falling, rather. The bleach blond started skating backwards to get a better view of the spectacle tumbling its way across the rink. Dudley crawled across the floor, blocking the way of other skaters and creating a massive pile-up. The blond boy came to the rescue of the victims. That is, the victims other than Dudley. Dudley slid himself across the floor until he could get to the wall where he failed to stand up again. The blond jumped over the wall and spun around in circles, landing right in front of the giant claw machine.

Harry peeled his eyes from the Roller God and tried to pick out another good skater, but without the blond, the talent pool was dead. The brunette was about to turn around when someone ran into him. He braced himself against the wall before turning around with the stranger's hands on his hips.

"Sorry," the blond drawled. "Guess I didn't know where I was go-" His mouth dropped, his mouth with the pale red lips and teeth to match his hair. "Merlin's beard, you're Harry Potter."

"Um, yeah, who are you?" Harry wriggled out of the boy's grasp and took a step back. "And how do you know me?" Draco whirled around and grabbed the other boy's hand.

"Come with me," he muttered. "Bloody Boy Who Lived in my bloody family roller rink on this bloody day. How can this bloody day get any better?" They stromed around the concessions counter and into the depths of the rink. The lights turned into sconces and the carpeting into flagstone. "I bloody got my bloody Hogwarts letter and now the bloody Boy Who Lived is in my bloody house. Come into the bloody library, bloody Harry bloody Potter." He spread his arms and spun around in the green wall-papered room with its four chandeliers and mahogany bookcases imported from Scotland. "Allow me to bloody introduce my self." He took a deep breath and brushed his hand down the front of his body. "Malfoy. Draco Malfoy." He extended his hand, his eyes wide as the beam of a wand and smile bigger than Nearly Headless Nick's. "Well, take my hand. I'll be able to say that I was touched by a celebrity. It isn't ever day that one meets the love child of the two best roller derby skaters to ever live."

"What?" Harry shook his hand but only for a second before falling into a leather loveseat. "Lovechild? Me? Of the two best roller derby skaters to ever live? Are you talking about my parents?"

"Yes, yes, oh, bloody yes." Draco ran to the corner of the room to get the step ladder and wheeled it over to the other side as fast as a Firebolt to pull down a blue leather book with gold letters "Roller Derby of the '80s" emblazoned in gold. "Oh, Merlin's bloody beard, I am so excited. I could, I could, just, just KISS you."

Harry muttered under his breath, I wouldn't mind that."

Draco wrapped his arm around the ladder to steady himself and breathed. Still hyperventilating as he flipped the pages, Draco turned to the last pages of the book with it's two page picture of James and Lily Potter. He read aloud, "The youngest and fastest to ever don the Gryffindor Roller Derby unifroms, James and Lily Potter crashed all of the school records, always in hot competition with each other even when they fell in love and their son was born the year after them and their friends left Hogwarts. Editor's note: right as this book was going to press, we received word that the Potter family had been in a tragic car accident in which both Lily and James perished, leaving their son Harry alone with nothing to prove for his loss other than a scar on his foreheard, presumably from a shard of the car's windshield." Draco slammed the book shut and slipped it back into its place, adding, "Harry Potter has not been seen since the accident. Even the great Albus Dumbledore pretends to not know his whereabouts. I guess I'm greater than Dumbledore." He grabbed the sides of the ladder and slid down, strutting over to Harry with practiced finesse. "My father will hear about this."

**Thank you so much for reading! I am really enjoying this. I wish I had a three-day weekend so I cold write more, but, alas, I don't. I'll try to publish the next chapter this week, but I can't make any promises. **


	2. Harry Potter and the Hidden Past

**AN: Thanks so much for reading! I don't own any characters or places that JKR came up with! Reviews are more welcome than pumpkin pie in my tummy. Love you guys! The seven chapter limit that I set on myself is not going to work... This may be the last time I update for a while because I'm doing NaNoWriMo in T-7 Days... Sorry, lovelies :(**

Chapter Two: Harry Potter and the Hidden Past

"What will I hear about, Draco?" Mr. Malfoy steadied himself in the doorway with his snakehead cane and cocked an eyebrow at his son who was barely hanging onto the library ladder.

Draco slid down the ladder in a second and took a deep breath to compose himself. "Father, I would like you to meet my new acquaintance, Harry Potter. Harry, please turn around. This is my father Lucius Malfoy."

Harry ripped his eyes away from Draco and nodded his head in a polite fashion. "It's nice to meet you, sir."

Mr. Malfoy's lips, red as Draco's, parted in a gasp that lasted for a good ten seconds. "H-Harry Potter?" The older man finally closed his mouth and tapped his long fingernails against his cane. "Merlin, it is, uh, you. You look exactly like your father."

"But he has his mother's eyes," Draco chimed in. Harry spun around to face him for a second and caught a wink from the blond.

"Yes, yes..." Mr. Malfoy started pacing towards Harry and took the boy's chin in his pale hand. "Much like your mother." He turned Harry's head to the side. "Your right side is definitely better." The man seated himself on a nearby leather couch with his legs crossed and muttered, "So you look like your parents, but can you skate like them?"

"I've never skated before, sir." Harry cleared his throat and shoved his hands in his pocket, fingering a penny he had found on the ground a few days ago.

Draco giggled to himself as his Father's face changed from a look of appraisal to outright confusion as if he was Professor Quirrel seeing a troll.

He took a sharp breath in and uncrossed his legs. "Who do you live with Harry? Merlin's beard, the whole wizarding community has been waiting for Dumbledore to come out with it since the accident."

Taking his hands out of his pockets and twisting them together, Harry asked, "I don't mean to be rude, but could you tell me more about the accident." Behind Harry, Draco gulped as Mr. Malfoy stood up and marched towards Harry, taking a step forward with every word until he was looking down at the boy with his cold, grey eyes.

"All you need to know is that it was a loss to the Roller Derby community. I do not wish to speak of it anymore." He raised his eyebrows to elicit final confirmation from the boy.

Harry nodded just as Mrs. Malfoy skated into the doorway with wide eyes and windblown hair. "Lucius, my dear, a word?" Mr. Malfoy pushed his shoulders back and strutted over to her. Draco grabbed Harry's arm as his parents talked with tones as silent as a Threstral's hooves.

"I know you was driving the other car, Harry."

"Who was it?"

"I can see why my father wouldn't want to talk about it. You see he's a-"

"Harry, come with us, your aunt and uncle are looking for you. We have some, shall we say, explaining to do for them." Draco's father extended his hand, fluttering the arms of his jacket in the process. He took the boy under his wing and left Narcissa and Draco alone. They took a route different from before, a shortcut of sorts.

"I didn't come this way with Draco," Harry stammered.

Mr. Malfoy held tighter to his arm and snapped, "Good."

They passed by a sickly creature with huge eyes and ears that were disproportionate to the rest of his tiny body. "Dobby! See to it that Pansy is running the ticket counter. Can't keep the bloody muggles waiting." The creature nodded, whimpering, and scampered off.

"Sir, what's a muggle?" Harry inquired as they breezed past a room with a peculiar smell which he would later learn was Unicorn Blood.

"Non-magic folk, Harry. Keep your eyes down. There's bright lights up ahead."

The lighting did increase a smidge, but Harry snuck glances out of his peripheral and saw the real reason Mr. Malfoy wanted him to look at his feet: the walls were stained with blood and skin all mixed together with the tracks of roller blades running through it all. As they got farther away from the library, the light increased even more but the blood stains faded out, replaced with news articles, many with headings featuring the name "Flight of Death" along with "The Death Eaters."

"Sir, Draco was talking about a place called Hogwarts..."

The man spun on his heel and came to a stop, finally letting go of Harry's arm leaving him with a feeling that he needed Skelo-Gro without knowing what it was.

"You will get a letter soon, Harry, and I will talk to Dumbledore so arrangements can be made for you to get school supplies. Do not worry. Now let's find your aunt and uncle. I presume it's your mother's sister, yes? Looking for a dashing redhead with more freckles that there are merpeople in the Black Lake, are we?"

"No, that's them." Harry took a final step out of the darkness and nodded his head in direction of his adopted family. Vernon had Dudley's shoulders in a death grip and Petunia was scratching at her temple while flitting her eyes to the ceiling and the floor.

Mr. Malfoy muttered something about bloody muggles and guided Harry by the shoulder. "Hello, may we have a word? It's about young Harry here?"

Vernon squinted his eyes and pulled Dudley closer to him. "Who are you and what are you doing with my son? Let go of Harry!"

Mr. Malfoy just blinked his eyes with pigmy puff innocence and smiled. "Follow me, sirs and madam." He twirled away with Harry in tow and brought them into a back room where a girl with short, black hair was popping her gum and looking at a magazine with moving pictures on the front. Lucius gestured for Harry to sit in an old wicker chair and whispered something to the girl. She spun around with her mouth open, almost losing her gum and dropping her magazine.

"What magazine is that? And why are the pictures moving?"

Lucius turned the girl around so she was facing the ticket window again and growled, "Harry, this is Pansy Parkinson. She will be in your year at Hogwarts." Harry's pseudo-family walked into the room just as Lucius said Hogwarts.

"Oh no," Vernon grumbled, falling into the closest chair. "Petunia, they've found him. We have to leave. Just let me catch my-" wheeze "-breath. He can't go to that blasted school. He'll be a freak like your sister and Dudley will end up scared and traumatized like you with all your shaking and nervous eye movements."

Mr. Malfoy took a deep breath and closed his eyes, muttering something under his breath. "When Harry receives his letter, my family and I will escort him to Diagon Alley to purchase his supplies. Until then, he can come to the rink as often as he wants free of charge. Leave everything to us."

Vernon wrinkled his overly large nose and rolled his lips until he looked like pug who had been in an accident. "Thank you, sir. We shall be going now." Petunia and Dudley followed Vernon out with a glassy look in their eyes like they had been snake charmed.

Harry exhaled as if he had just been saved from the bottom of the Lake and stammered incoherently at Mr. Malfoy. "Do not worry, Harry. They will be fine. It's just a simple spell. Now, whenever you are ready, come out to the front and grab some skates. I have to talk to my wife." He patted the boy's shoulder and stormed out. Before Harry could take another breath, Pansy had him cornered. She breathed down at him with her pug nose inches away from his mouth.

"You know what he did, right?"

"No, I don't know much of what's gone in the past hour."

"It's a pretty _powerful_ memory charm, he told me ." Pansy started to circle Harry like a bad record. "Only powerful wizards can _perfor_m it. You see, he erased _part_ of their memory. They won't remember that your parents were wizards. If they did, they'd never let you go to Hogwarts. And we wouldn't want that, would we?" Pansy pinned Harry's shoulders against the chair until he nodded his head.

Draco skated into the room and stopped himself on Pansy's arm. She rested her head on his shoulder, and he smirked. "So, Harry, I hear you're going to be spending more time with us?"

"Yeah, except I don't know how to skate."

"It's fine. The place closes down in about an hour. We'll just wait around-" Draco dragged his finger across Pansy's chin, drawing out his words like an artist "-until then."

"But Draco I have to leave once we close," Pansy whimpered as the boy's arm wrapped around her waist.

He pecked her on the nose like he was a hail storm. "What a shame, sweetie. Now go help my mum with the skates. The muggle children are no doubt getting impatient." He gave her a swat and she ran off to the other room. Once she was gone, Draco muttered a few choice words and grabbed her magazine off the counter.

In between helping muggles with tickets, Draco read the magazine and answered Harry's questions.

"What magazine is that?"

"Witches Weekly. Look at this handsome fellow." Draco turned around the magazine to show a blond-haired fellow laughing to himself with exaggerated arm movements. "Gilderoy Lockhart. There's something off about him, but everyone adores him."

"Why are the pictures moving?"

"That's how all wizard stuff is."

"I didn't see in that book you showed me."

"Oh, well, you must have been too far away, but your parents never really move much in that picture."

He flipped the pages and waggled his eyes at an unrealistic representation of a semi-naked Godric Gryffindor.

"Who's that?"

"Only the founder of the worst Hogwarts house. This is who you want to know." Draco showed him a picture of Salazar Slytherin admiring himself in tuxedo-like dress robes. "Salazar Slytherin. Founder of Slytherin house-the best Hogwart's house."

Draco reclined and continue flipping through the magazine, all the while the covergirl waving and batting her eyes at Harry.

"How old are you, Draco?"

"Eleven, same as you."

"I'm not eleven yet. My birthday's in a week."

"Any special plans?"

"No, Dudley's birthday is always the one we have a party for." Harry picked at the wicker of his seat and clicked his heels together.

"So you both invite people? Two cakes, I presume?"

"No, well, we have one big cake with Dudley's name on it, but none of my friends come because they're, y'know, busy."Harry's glasses started to fall down his nose, but he pushed them back up with practiced robotics.

"Why aren't we in class together?"

"I live kind of far away..."

"Well, tell me some names of your friends. Maybe I know some of them."

"Um, well there's Pierce."

"What kind of bloody name is that?"

"He's kind of, um, off. He's better friends with Dudley. You probably wouldn't know the others. They live even farther from here."

Draco threw Witches weekly onto the counter and strode over to Harry, extending his hand. "Harry Potter, we are officially friends now." He smirked. "I'm glad to have the honor of being your first."

"You are _not_ my first friend."

The boy sneered and turned on his heel to leave. "Don't lie to yourself, Potter."


	3. Harry Potter and the Skating Lesson

**Thank you guys so much for reading! I am so sorry that I have not updated in the last month... but as I mentioned in the last chapter, I was doing NaNoWriMo which was very successful! Unfortunately for you lovely people, my NaNo was not a fanfic and it was so terrible that I fear it will never be published. **

**Chapter Three: Harry Potter and the Skating Lesson**

Slamming a pair of skates onto the counter, Draco did figure eights around the floor. "These are some of my old four-wheelers. We can test your skill and then move you onto some better ones once you're ready. You say that you really have never skated before?"

"Never. I can't believe that my parents were so good at it." Harry pulled on the skates and pulled himself up with a chair but quickly fall because his laces were too loose. Draco knelt down at his crumpled form to tighten them, smiling all the while.

"Harry? Will you let me be your coach? You could be a great skater with a bit of help. It is best that you decide who you want your coach to be now. You will soon find out that some coaches are better than others, but fear not for I can help you." He offered the younger boy a hand and pulled him up, sling shotting him across the room on accident. "Sorry about that, Harry," he apologized to the boy who had his hands pressed up against the green wall, panting and shaking his bangs out of his eyes. "We'll go slow from now on."

Harry turned his head towards the other boy whose eyes were waiting in fear that the Potter boy would turn out to be a flop. He ran a hand through his blond locks and swallowed, the veins under his pale skin pulsating as fast as a strobe light.

"That sounds good. The coaching and the going slow."

Draco sighed and took his hands out of his hair to grab Harry by the wrists and pull him towards the rink as he skated backwards. "If you fall, you fall, do not worry about that." He turned around and put his hands on Harry's shoulders. The black-haired boy had never felt such a strong touch. "I will be right here to help you back up." With that, he pushed his student forward and waited with folded arms.

Harry stretched his arms out in front of him and held his breath as he skated over the perfectly smooth floor, barely registering the green and silver decor around him as he kept his knees locked in fear. When his hands finally met with the green carpeting on the opposite wall, he breathed a sigh of relief as Draco sped over and clapped him on the back; he winced at the slap but managed a smile for his newly-appointed coach. "Great job, Harry. You have great form. Now we just need to get you moving on your own. Here, turn around and watch me." He grabbed the boy's hands and spun him towards him before leaning him back up against the wall. "Pretend that you are on a broom. Each push of the foot is one sweep in the right direction. Pretend that you are stirring a potion. Stay focused so that you do not mess up. Pretend that you are kissing someone." Harry could not help but think of the skating blond boy. "Respond to what you feel-lean into the turns, speed up at the straightaways, and hold your breath. Am I making any sense? Father says that I focus more on poetics than technique sometimes in my skating. But what does he know? He was never as good as your parents."

Harry blushed and pretended to clean his glasses to keep his eyes off the perfection in front of him as the boy spun around in circles and swivelled backwards and did jumps around the rink while also showing off his tricks with lifting up one leg and then crouching down and turning 180s.

"Draco...you're amazing at skating," Harry blubbered once he had finished cleaning his already clean glasses.

"Thanks, but don't get caught up on that. You will be this good in a little bit as long as you come around enough." The boy shrugged and coasted over to Harry.

"Trust me, anything that I can do to get out of my aunt and uncle's house is worth doing." Draco nodded. "But don't think that's the only reason I am doing this!"

He held up a hand as he squatted down to retie one of Harry's skates. "No worries. You have great potential. I know you're here to fulfill your destiny-that's why we are all here. What else is there to do in life?"

"You're smart for an eleven-year old."

Draco shrugged. "I am going to skate behind you like this." He crouched down and rested on his haunches behind Harry. "Now, just let me move your legs for you. This will go better if you do not hesitate. You just have to trust me."

"I do."

"Good." Draco tightened his grip and then started moving the other boy's legs back and forth as if they were a Dumbledore's wand as he decorated the Great Hall for Christmas.

Harry finally tucked his arms in and even started moving them in opposition as Draco guided him around a corner and he kept his eyes wide open so that he would not miss any of this glorious moment in such close proximity to the boy.

Before Harry even realized it, Draco had taken his hands away and followed Harry at a distance as the boy's new muscle memory kicked in and he glided around the rink in a drowsy waltz. "Draco, wait!" He shouted, flailing once he saw the boy far behind him.

"Harry, Harry, stop worrying, you are doing great. Just relax and let your body take over." He sped up to fall into line with his student and take his hand as he started hyperventilating until he felt the calm safety of Draco's grasp. With each lap, he blushed more and more as Draco fell into a lazy swaying as they circled the room.

"I,uh, think I should go," Harry stuttered. "My uncle may worry."

"Oh, okay, yeah. Come back whenever you want," Draco offered as he let go of Harry's hand before they skated back into the table area.

"Thanks."

"And take the skates."

"Thanks for that too." Harry nodded and headed for the door before Draco stopped him.

"Wait! Are you seriously going to skate home?"

"It would be good practice." Harry shrugged and put his hand on the door handle.

"Wait a minute. I will be right back." Draco dashed off into the dark hallway that he had led Harry down when he first got there.

Harry leaned against the finger-printed door, hoping that Draco's plan did not involve some wizard vehicle like a dragon that would burn his hair off. In the other side of the room, the lights flickered and then went out, leaving the room in a silky haze from the light outside that seeped in past the grimy glass that Harry leaned back against. "Draco?" In the corner, he heard footsteps and a small squeak accompanied by the sound of falling roller blades.

He was just about to open the door and leave on his own when Draco swooped in from the hallway and grabbed Harry around the waist, slinging him onto a broom in a second before u-turning around and going back into the hallway. He took Harry down a new route lined with articles from a newspaper called the Daily Prophet all of which were framed in silver frames and showed the Malfoys hoisting trophies above their head and blowing kisses to the boys as they passed by.

Draco turned his broom up and zoomed up to squeeze through a small window at the top of a final room that housed all of the trophies and had a ten-foot ceiling. Harry wrapped his arms around his waist and crushed his head against the driver's back as they emerged outside and hovered over the building. Before Harry could ask what was going on, Draco was off again in the direction of his house.

"We're flying, Draco! We're flying!"

"You are such a muggle!"

"Hey!"

Draco shrugged an apology and sped through a thicket of trees near Privet Drive. "I mean that in the best way possible. Here we are. We shall see you soon?"

"Yes." Harry dismounted, letting his arms linger around Draco before he got off. He waved his arm at the lamppost to shoo away an owl that was sitting on top of it.

"Wait, Harry, that owl has a letter." Draco threw down his own broom and extended his arm for the bird to land. Harry reached out with timid hands to accept the letter from the owl's mouth. The owl bit Draco when he did not offer him anything, and he cursed the bird as it flew away. "Well, Harry, that must be your Hogwarts letter. I guess mine's waiting for me at home. I best be off." He held out his hand and waited for Harry to shake it but he was still staring at the letter with its vanilla envelope and red wax seal that he had only seen in history books.

"Owls? Really?"

"What else would they use?"

Harry took a deep breath and closed his mouth before he adjusted his glasses. "The post man, like the rest of England!" He shook the letter in Draco's face.

Draco grabbed his hand and dug a nail into his vein. "Open it, Harry. I will see you soon." He threw the boy's hand down and saluted him before checking for muggles and disappearing on his broom.

"Well, this is it," Harry muttered to himself.

To be continued...


	4. Harry Potter and the Hogwarts Letter

**AN: Thanks, as always, for reading. Thanks for clicking on this, really. I love to watch the traffic graphs for my stories. So far this one chapter every weekend thing is working, but this is only the second weekend... Remember when I thought that this story would be only seven chapters long? Silly me!**

Harry Potter and the Hogwarts Letter

Having never seen a Hogwarts letter before, Harry expected something even more simple than the post cards that Aunt Marge would send Dudley from her voyages with her dogs. While Uncle Vernon may have scoffed at the "overdone" gilded edges and the "dull" cream color of the paper but to Harry it was more valuable than the History of Magic would later be to Hermione. He stroked the gold border as he read the calligraphy thanking Merlin that he had Draco to explain all of this magic to him seeing as that the only word he understood 100% percent was Hogwarts-a magical place where him and Draco could skate to their heart's content.

He hid the letter under his shirt, tucked into his belt, with Draco's old skates stashed under the hydrangea bush. His uncle still walked around in a daze with his aunt merely fretting around in Harry's absence while Dudley dozed off in front of his television. Leaving hsi aunt to make dinner himself, took advantage of their disadvantagement to put the letter under his pillow before sneaking back outside to test out his skates again.

Mrs. Pince watched Harry from his garden where she was over-watering her plants by getting distracted by the Boy Wonder while he flailed his arms as he gained speed, not caring for the first time since he had started skated how he looked because the totally cute Draco was not watching. To turn around, he wrapped his arm around a tree and spun a 180 before skating down the straightaway with his arms in tight this time and his knees bent more as he pushed off with each foot with greater force each time than ever before.

After one last spin around the tree, he let himself glide towards his house to the applause of Mrs. Pince with his arms spread wide.

* * *

When Harry skated up the door, green strobe lights were already flashing inside as Draco and his friends chatted in a circle in the middle of the rink. Harry coughed and in an instant Draco scrambled to his feet and barely managed to make it to the entrance without falling. He cleared his throat and wrapped an arm around Harry's shoulders as they skated to the group. "Death Eaters, may I introduce to you the famed Harry Potter."

Pansy rolled her eyes because she had already met the boy the other day and mostly viewed him as competition and had already allotted all of her preteen affection to Draco.

Draco pointed out Crabbe, Goyle, Millicent, and Blaise, all of whom raised their eyes to the pair in disbelief.

"_The_ Harry Potter?" Millicent stuttered, her being the last to close her mouth because she was the most dim of the group-only admitted because her parents were rich, but she would lose her place on the team once Harry was added.

"No, the other one," Harry chuckled as Draco's arm fell from his shoulder and he shrugged with his hands in his pockets and his feet slipping back and forth underneath the gaze of the other.

Pansy sent death glares to Crabbe and Goyle who bowed their heads and hunched their shoulders in hiding, but Blaise sprung up in a second without even kneeling down and shook the Boy Who Lived's hand. "Zabini. Of the Italian Zabinis. You have heard of us?"

Harry let his hand fall from the other boy's grasp before admitting that he had not and looking away as Blaise's face fell. "I'd love to hear more about you sometime, though. I'm sure you're great, it's just that I only found out that I was a wizard a few days ago. I didn't even know that my parents had died in a car crash."

"Oh," the Death Eaters chorused, refusing to add anything to the story of the Potter's death.

"Shall we skate?" Drawled Pansy. "I've had enough of our gossipping. I'd like to see how little Potter has progressed. Draco has been coaching him," she explained to the others as they fell into line with each other and Draco called out warm up commands. Harry hung at the back but kept in stride with the others as they cycled through backwards skating and figure eights with their eyes open and closed, arms out and in. At the end of the set, Pansy droned, "I guess you're pretty good, Potter."

Millicent skated up behind her and almost fell before catching herself to sneer, "Are you fast? Bet you're not as fast as me."

"Oh, Bulstrode, shut it. You could not skate backwards until a month ago and you still cannot do it with your eyes closed. I know, I watch you." Millicent showed off her new skills but ran into a wall as the others gathered on the line at the edge of the rink to start a race.

"Singles or teams, Draco?"

"Singles. I haven't gotten the chance to show Harry how to crack the whip or anything yet."

Crabbe shrugged and hopped up on the edge with Goyle and Millicent as the better half of their team toed the line with Potter.

"On your count, Goyle."

"On your marks, get set, go!"

In one push, Draco was ahead with Pansy close on his tail, the two of them passing each other as Pansy tapped Draco's shoulder each time she got close enough. Zabini twirled around in circles, knowing that he would lose to Draco and also sure that he was faster than Potter.

However, Harry set his arms in and crossed and uncrossed his legs around the corners and glided through the straightaways, managing to stay in line with Pansy but far enough away so that she would not be able to trip him.

Millicent started cheering before Pansy screamed at her to shut her "frog mouth." Draco rolled his eyes at the rudeness and swooped around a turn as Harry gained on him.

"Oh no, you don't, Potter," Pansy growled as she bent down and stuck out a leg in the penultimate straightaway. He dodged it and sent himself going at an even faster speed as Pansy recovered from her stunt and Draco fell in behind him.

Taking a moment to laugh at the idea, Harry thought about how much slower he would be going if Draco were not there, and he found himself presented with the dilemma of letting his crush win and showing off his new speed. Before he could make up his mind, Pansy had started screaming again, this time at Draco as the blond let his arms hang limp and stopped skating, letting Harry skate across the finish line to the sound of an angry Slytherin.

"I won," he muttered. "I beat the Death Eaters."

Draco continued his slow skating and clapped the victor on the shoulder, letting his fingers linger and spread across the boy's back for a second longer than what was considered normal. Blaise joined them and made an excuse about having to help his mother with dinner and would see them all tomorrow, but Pansy was not quite so pleasant.

"How did _you_ beat _me? _I have been skating since I could walk and might as well be some mudblood you're such a novice. I deserved to win this race, and you know it. You probably cheated. Cut corners. Didn't go around the rink."

"Pansy!" Draco pushed her away but she only shuddered a bit before regaining her balance and skating away from him. "Don't call Harry a mudblood or a cheater! We were all watching him the whole time and he did not cheat!"

"Fine, then I'm leaving, and do not expect to see me here tomorrow to man your stupid ticket counter. Let's go guys." She waved her and Millicent ran out ahead of her as she grabbed the other two boys by the ear and dragged them towards the door without so much as a goodbye.

Draco sighed. Harry had never seen porn, but he was sure that Draco's sigh was similar to what the actors sounded like. "Sorry about that. She's just really competitive. It will be better when we're all on a team together next summer because she doesn't compete with her teammates like that."

"It's fine."

"Um, can you stay a bit longer? I wanted to show you partner skating. It works best when the two people are the same height and the others are either shorter or taller than me." He let his eyes linger on Harry. "But you're perfect."

Harry hid his blush by turning around but nodded and let Draco take the lead. The blond grabbed his hips and they started off skating. Harry smiled at not only their proximity but also at the thought that a week ago, he would have fallen on his face if someone had started pushing him like that.

"The best part about partner skating is that not many other people do it, so you don't have to be any good to make the qualifying rounds. It's just that a lot of people don't know how to do it, but you're a natural. We'll be like your parents in no time if we keep this up."

"I would like that," Harry murmured to himself.

**TBC: Up next, Diagon Alley, here we come.**


	5. Harry Potter and the Wizarding Alley

**AN: So this is a day later than normal, but it is still the weekend! This chapter is necessary and I hope that does not make it boring because that is my fear. The only thing I hate more than terrible grammar in fanfic is when authors make excuses like "Sorry that was boring, but I needed to put it in there." You have to be careful on this site, lovelies, and I am so happy that in your caution, you choose to read this... and maybe review?**

Chapter Five: Harry Potter and the Wizarding Alley

After flipping the OPEN sign to CLOSED, Mr. Malfoy turned on the boys with his hands in a steeple. "Now, Harry, Draco has been to Diagon Alley a few times in the past so he may tell you that he knows his way around, but stay close to us and you should be a-"

The door bust open in a cloud of light with something that resembled a pig emerging on the other side with a pink probiscus and a furry behind. "Malfoy! What are you doing with this boy? Dumbledore sent me to his house, and guess wha'! He weren't thar!"

The blond man waved off the half-giant and put an arm around Narcissa as her eyelids started fluttering in anxiety at the new arrival. Draco grabbed Harry's hand but dropped it a second later. Harry wiggled his fingers in hopes of touching the other boy again, but gave up once Mr. Malfoy started talking in a calm, pureblood tone, "Hagrid. I have received permission from Dumbledore to accompany you and Harry to Diagon Alley seeing as that he has become friends with Draco."

"Fine, but I get to take Harry in me sidecar," he grumbles as he taps the end of his sooty umbrella on the carpeted floor with its blade tracks from years of service to the English skating community.

"Please, Hagrid, allow us to apparate as a group of five, "it shall save time."

Hagrid grumbles an agreement and hangs the umbrella on his belt loop before taking a sideways glance at Harry. "Nice to finally meet ya, boy." He extended his hand, so big that he had to make his own oven mitts. "T'is a pleasure. Name's Rubeus Hagrid. Head Gamekeeper at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Narcissa scoffed, her eyelids finally slowing down to an andante tempo rather than their frenzied allegro from before, "You are the only gamekeeper at Hogwarts."

Hagrid shrugged for he knew his place and how he ranked among the Wizarding Social Ladder but whispered to Harry as the five of them moved into a circle to apparate, "Just 'cause I'm the only one, don't mean that I ain't the best one."

Harry chuckled to himself as he joined hands with Mr. Malfoy and Hagrid, watching as Draco shuddered at the half-giants touch not out of disdain for he did not know Hagrid's story of how he had come to lose his magic but more out of fear for this large man who waved around an umbrella like he had seen police wave around clubs.

Mr. Malfoy closed his eyes after asking if everyone was ready. Harry had said yes without knowing what he was ready for.

To him apparating was like being a dead goldfish flushed down the toliet only to resurface in a swere pipe that transported you to the surface of the sun and then let you freefall to the tip of the Eiffel Tower where the tip poked you all the way through before you fell down and landed right behind a bunch of muggles taking their Christmas photo.

He wanted to change his answer to no. He was not ready.

Sometime in the voyage, he had closed his eyes like Mr. Malfoy but opened them at Hagrid's prodding and was immediately glad that he had said yes.

To Harry, Diagon Alley was Disneyland (sorry to all of my readers who haven't been there) with strange characters and fantastic sights. wizards looked like Mickey and witches like Minnie with the first sight of Gringotts like Space Mountain to a muggle-raised boy. The two grown men lock eyes to confirm the decision of the first stop before grabbing the boys' hands and strutting to the door nestled between the pillars as tall as Hogwarts Great Hall with Narcissa skittering behind before Lucius snapped at her that she could go to talk to Madam Malkin. She bowed her head and left the men as if it was Game Day Sunday and she didn't understand the rules to Football.

Mr. Malfoy did not even have to clear his throat once inside the marble cave with its podiums that reminded Harry of his school in Little Whinging before he was able to get service. He snapped his fingers over Harry's head until Hagrid handed him a slip of parchment with Harry's vault number on it. "I'll need the key to this vault and also to go my vault."

"Ope! Dumbledore'll wanting me to retrieve a special something from this vault too," he muttered as he handed a folded letter with the Hogwarts seal on it to the goblin who was already turning around to lead them to a cart. He took it in his spindly hands and cracked the seal before sneering at Hagrid with a twitch in his nose.

"All right," he grumbled before again turning and waddling to the back of the hall and pulling aside a tapestry before ushering the men onto a cart. "First to the Potter Vault."

Harry had never been on a roller coaster, but when Draco shouted, "This feels like a coaster!" when they took off, he could not help but laugh and agree and throw his arms up with the other boy. "This never gets old."

They took one last loop-de-loop before jerking to a stop in front of a nondescript door with only a vault number as identification.

Hagrid pulled himself out of the cart first and gave Harry a hand before asking, "How much money d'ya reckon you'll be needin'?"

"Uh," Harry stammered as the goblin unlocked the door with a key the size of his pinky. "Maybe a hundred pounds. Would that do?" All of the other men burst into laughter as the goblin smirked to himself and pushed the massive door aside.

"Harry, boy, you won't be needin' pounds anymore. Have a look here." Hagrid waved his arms towards the open door that now displayed a pile of silver and gold for the viewers. It was large enough to stop the Malfoys' laughing.

Harry raised his eyebrows in confusion as he sifted through a pile of copper sickles while the others came inside. "So my parents were oafs? They collected fake money? What am I supposed to do with this? I'll never be able to buy all of my books now."

The Malfoys would have laughed if they were not so star struck, and Hagrid was too busy enjoying their astonishment to poke fun at Harry's naivete. "This is Wizard money, 'Arry, and as your friends are finding out, your parents were rich."

Malfoy spread his arms and turned in a circle in one of the few spots that did not have coins and trophies stacked on the floor. "So this is where the Potter fortune went! So here are their trophies! And I had almost forgotten that James came from a pureblood family before he married that filthy m-"

"Don't you talk about Lilly like that. Here, Harry, take this," he commanded as he shoved a pile of galleons into the boy's hands. "Let's go. Grindewald, we are ready to leave!" He marched out of the vault and sat down with Harry to watch the Malfoys get dragged out of the room.

"Next, the Malfoy vault," Grindewald announced as he started pumping the handle as they plunged deeper into the depths of the bank as the gas lamps increased in number and darkness set in. They passed other carts at breakneck speeds, and Lucius barely had time to wave to his friends. "The Malfoy vault."

"Stay here," Lucius ordered the rest of the cart as he put up his hand to stop them before snatching his key from Grindewald and slipping into the vault after unlocking it and pressing his nose to a touch pad near the lock.

Draco smiled at the two people across the way. "You know, I've never been in the vault myself, so don't, uh, feel left out. I'm sure there's nothing in there. My idea is that father puts all of our money into the rink, you know, with skates and all."

"Draco..." Harry shook his head to reassure his friend that he did not care to see the Malfoy vault.

Mr. Malfoy jumped into the cart and nodded to Grindewald, muttering, "We can go to your vault now, Hagrid.'

The gruff man nodded as they climbed into the stratosphere where the doors grew smaller and smaller and the track thinner and thinner. The group started to tilt back and forth with increasing speed until Grindewald finally stopped them at a dead end at the top of the bank's vault space. "Allow me," he whispered as he jumped down to the vault's platform and ran his finger along the door, setting off a series of unlocking bolts and sliding ball bearings before the door swung open as if of its own accord. Hagrid took a step to the side as if shifting his weight to let Lucius see in. The blond man craned his neck to see but retracted it once he saw that the only contents of the vault was a parchment-wrapped parcel tied in string that butchers used to tie up meat. "Off we go," he mumbled once everyone was resituated.

Harry spent the return trip staring at an oblivious Draco who was distracted by the apparently interesting cave walls that had mini waterfalls running down their sides, but water was nowhere near as blue as Draco's eyes or as fascinating. The blondie yawned and to Harry it was cuter than any cat video any muggle would watch on youtube.

They came to the end all too soon and the grown-ups decided to split up much to the boy's dismay so that Hagrid could take Harry to Ollivander's and Draco could go to Madam Malkin's.

"If you'll excuse me, Harry," Hagrid grunted as they made their way down a side street with curvy shop walls and stained glass windos in shop doors. "Run along to the end of the street there to Ollivander's and I'll join you in a moment. I have something to... purchase."

Harry nodded and smiled at his new friend before running ahead as Hagrid doubled back. He skidded into Ollivander's store, ringing the bell as he pushed open the door. A cloud of dust surrounded him as he shuffled his feet inside in idleness as he waited for someone to respond. A scruffy old man tip toed forward to not kick up to much dust or alert the boy as he spun in circles to take in rows and rows of shelves filled with boxes too small to hold shoes as he might have guessed they did.

"Harry? Harry Potter?"

"Oh, yes!" The boy spun around, kicking up more dust and walking over to the counter. "Could you help me?"

"Help you? Why, of course! I have been waiting for this day since you were born. I already have a few choices picked out for you. Now, here, uh, try this one!" He whirled around and threw aside a pile of spell books to get to a box of wands that he plopped onto the counter. "It's pine wood with a dragon scale core."

Harry took it, having no idea what he was doing, took the stick from Ollivander and waved it around. The dust swirled around him in a tornado that sprouted darts to stab at him more the longer he held the wand. He dropped it at his feet and bent down to pick it up before Ollivander jutted out his wand and shouted "Accio wand!" before the boy could touch it again.

"Well, well, well. I had hoped it would not come to this, but if a wand such as that will not work... you might try this one." He handed Harry a holly branch and took a step back for fear that a disaster would strike again.

This time, though, the dust swirled around Harry in a playful breeze to the sound of harps as Harry's eyes lit up and he smiled at Ollivander as the older man came out from behind the counter to take the wand from Harry.

"This is the one, Mr. Potter. How curious. Holly branch and..."

"And what?"

"Phoenix feather..."

"What is phoenix feather?"

Hagrid peeked his head into the shop.

"The same phoenix who gave a feather to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named..."

"Who's that?"

"Ah, 'Arry," Hagrid bellowed as he set something down outside the door. "Let's buy that wand for you and then find those Malfoys."

Ollivander smiled a greeting and accepted the galleons that Harry handed over before sliding the wand back into its box and giving it to Hagrid. "Well, see ya 'round, 'Vander," Hagrid muttered before escorting Hagrid back to the street where he picked up a golden cage that housed a Snowy Owl. "Meet Hedwig. She's yours!"

Harry snatched the cage away with a grin and beamed up at Hagrid before unlatching the door and letting the bird soar above them. "She's beautiful," Harry cried as Hagrid laughed at his antics. She spread her wings and flew in a spiral like a water spout in the clear sky over Diagon Alley. "Thank you, Hagrid. This is the best gift I've ever gotten."

Hagrid forced a smile at the truth of Harry's last statement. "Well, it's no problem. Now, let's be off." He clapped a hand on Harry's shoulder and Hedwig followed them for a ways before plunging down and flying into her cage as they passed gingerbread stores and Mary Tudor roofs until they arrived at the stained glass windows of Madam Malkin's right as the Malfoys were leaving.

"Well," Lucius droned, "we have purchased almost all of our necessities, so we will be seeing you later, Harry. Hagrid. Draco, say goodbye to your friend,"

Draco nodded and bridged the gap between him and Harry in a hug. "I'll see you on Platform 9 and 3/4," he whispered into the other boy's ear.

Harry pulled away to ask, "Where?" but Draco only stroked his cheek and chuckled to himself.

"Don't worry your pretty little head about. All in due time."

**AN: So this was pretty long, but I expected it to be like that. I am not sure what the next chapter will be, but in writing this, I think it will start when Hagrid leaves Harry in King's Cross or maybe after he crosses the barrier... We'll see :)**


	6. Harry Potter and the Hogwarts Express

**AN: Hey, guys! Thanks so much for reading! I probably won't be able to update next week... unless I update on Christmas... Maybe I'll do it early and make that a present for you. Sorry to all my readers who do not celebrate Christmas... I do not know exactly where this chapter is going to go... Yay! Surprises!**

Chapter 6: Harry Potter and the Hogwarts Express

Hagrid showed up at the Dursleys during breakfast and broke down the door with a tip of his umbrella wand. Vernon shuddered and moved to apprehend the half-giant, but Harry waved his new wand around a bit, and his uncle sat right back down. Goodbyes and affection in this family were as rare as thestrals, so Harry left with only a nod to his housemates.

Once outside, Hagrid clapped him and the back and then grabbed him by the shoulder to put him into the side car. "This used to be your godfather's mot-never mind," he stuttered. "Hope you don't mind."

Harry shook his head-after apparating to Diagon Alley, he could do handle anything in the way of traveling. With a wink, Hagrid revved the engine before waving his umbrella over the street and zooming down the Privet Drive runway. Harry had never flown in a plane before (the Dursleys always left him with Mrs. Pince on holiday) but to him, the motorcycle was better than even the Concord. Hagrid hit a button and they became invisible to muggles below milling around King's Cross Station. Hagrid half-crash-landed, half-landed normlly on the roof of the station, and Harry tumbled out, becoming plastered against the domed window nearby.

Running towards the boy, Hagrid threw off his helmet before scooping up Harry and sprinting to a door next to them. The city was laid out for Harry like he had never seen before, but little did he know that in the coming years he would see it from such heights over and over again until it become banal.

The stairs led them down a corridor that opened up into a steel bridge that spread over the tracks. Hagrid muttered a spell and Harry's belongings and tickets appeared in his hand. Harry took the ticket as Hagrid said, "Don't be a stranger. Make your parents proud-they were the finest witch and wizard of their year. Bye, 'Arry."

Harry muttered, "Goodbye," and paused to ask about his ticket, but the half-giant was already gone, perhaps having hidden himself in a crowd or perhaps apparating or perhaps running up the stairs. Harry grabbed the handles of his cart after giving Hedwig a quick pat on the head and balancing his feet on the bottom rungs near his trunk so that he could coast to the elevator at the end of the bridge. He took it down without any muggles but was deposited into a sea of them.

With his curious ticket-where was Platform 9 3/4?-he navigated the waters until he found a train conductor in his flat-billed hat.

"Excuse me, sir, but could you tell me where platform 9 3/4 is located?"

"Stop pulling me leg, kid," the man mumbled before turning around.

Someone grabbed Harry by the elbow and started dragging him and his cart towards a brick pillar towards the end of platform 9. "This way, me boy. Percy, you first." Harry stood spellbound as redhead after redhead ran through the brick wall, all of them wearing hand-knit sweaters and scuffed-up shoes. "Now, what's your name?" The woman clad in a granny square shawl with frizzy red curls ushers him towards the wall. "Just run."

Harry gulped and slid his feet off of the cart to get a running start. He gained speed, and when he passed through, it felt for a split second like the thrill of apparating. He coasted towards a red train with gold and black detailing as someone appeared behind him-one of the gingers wearing a tan coat and corduroy pants with holes in the knees. He ignored the other boy and handed off his cart to a handler after grabbing a handful of change from the side pocket of his trunk. Following the flow of people, Harry climbed the steps to the train with his knapsack in hand and found a room near the middle/back of the train with no other occupants.

He was just about to get some shut eye when someone slid open the door to the compartment, muttering, "Oh, sorry, I didn't know someone was in here."

"No, sit down."

The tone of Harry's voice suggested 'pureblood' to Ron, but he sat down anyway and slid his roller blades under the seat.

"Oh, you skate too?" Harry asked before Ron looked up.

"Yeah, practically everyone on this train does-oh Merlin!" Ron finally looked up. "You're Harry Potter."

"Oh, um, yeah, is this going to be like it is with everyone?"

Ron's jaw dropped as he fidgeted with his hands. "Well, gosh, I hope not for yer sake, wow. We thought you were dead, but there were rumors of you reappearing about a month ago to skate at the Malfoy's rink. Guess, they have some truth to them." Ron closed his mouth and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "You got the scar?"

"Yeah." Harry shrugged as he pushed back his bangs.

"Wow."

Harry nodded.

"I'm Ron. Ron Weasley. Pleasure to meet you."

Harry nodded.

Ron peeked his head out of the compartment as the train started rolling along. "Wanna go skating?"

"Sure." Harry jumped from his seat and fetched his skates from his knapsack on the luggage rack above them. Ron pulled his on in seconds and the two boys were out in the wall, skating around like Snoopy and the Peanuts gang in "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

They raced each other down the halls and did not even notice when other people closed their shades but welcomed other studetns who ventured out to join them. A couple of the new additions stopped in their tracks to introduce themselves to Harry, and one of them, a taller boy with sandy-blond hair whisked him into an empty compartment. "Name's Oliver Wood, Harry. You seem like a good skater." Olive pulled on a cord to illuminate the room. He towered over Harry who hunched his shoulders and kept his eyes downcast to keep from staring at this heartthrob. "We'll meet again, I'm sure," Oliver said tersely before skating out to deal with an intruder.

The intruder, a girl with buck teeth and bushy hair, weaved in an out of the skaters, admonishing them for breaking the rules and asking if anyone had seen a toad. Oliver grabbed her wrist, and she blushed as he led her out of the train car. "The gal's right though." He sighed. "We need to get our robes on."

His announcement was interrupted by the arrival of the trolley woman who sent the kids running back to their compartments for sickles and knuts. Harry skated back and grabbed a couple galleons, noticing Ron sitting dejectedly staring out the window.

"Something interesting out there, Ron? Just looks like plain, ole countryside to me."

"Yeah," the boy chuckled.

"Don't you want anything from the trolley?" The lady rolled the cart past their door.

"Nah, I have food," he mumbled, holding up a chicken sandwich of some sort.

Harry shook his head and flagged down the woman. "I'll take two of everything."

The boys ate away the Potter fortune with frosty lips and glazed eyes, constantly wiping their fingers on their pants. Chocolate frogs jumped around the room and wizard cards lay everywhere amidst cellophane that sparkled magically and Fizzing Whizbees that would not stop humming. A Prefect rapped on their door with his knuckles and shook his head before instructing them to get their robes on.

They stripped down with their backs to each other and avoided stepping on any of the remaining sweets as they pulled on slacks and button downs under sweater vests without any color on them. The train skidded to a stop on a foggy platform illuminated by one lone lamp and the voice of Hagrid who came onto the scene carrying a gas lamp.

"First years, this 'a way," he bellowed.

Harry dismounted with Ron in tow and followed the swinging light to the best night of his life since he had met Draco-the blond boy who was presently running up to tap Harry on the shoulder in greeting before running back to the other Death Eaters.

"Ugh, Malfoy," Ron moaned.

_No, not just Malfoy_, Harry thought to himself as they paired off into boats. _That boy is the cutest thing I have ever seen._


	7. Harry Potter and the Sorting Hat

**AN: Sorry I have not updated in a while... It's been so long that I forgot when I told you I would update, but I have been out of town and did not have access to a computer for a week. I think that you guys can sympathize, I was dying! This will be one of two or three chapters that focus on the first school year. I plan to do a few chapters for each year with one or two chapters in between for each summer until we reach the Final Battle :) Thanks for reading, lovelies.**

Chapter Seven: Harry Potter and the Sorting Hat

Ron and Harry found themselves in a boat with a boy muttering about a missing toad and a girl patting his arm about it named Hermione. Every minute as they glided across the Black Lake with their boat's lantern swinging back and forth hypnotically, Ron would whisper witty comments about their boatmates to Harry who would stifle a laugh in the sleeve of his robes. Hagrid led them into a stone-walled hall once their journey was finished and let the children wait for a woman he called "McGonnagal.

Malfoy tapped Harry on the shoulder and the black-haired boy turns around in a second, his already-present smile growing even more when he caught sight of his friend/ crush. But the blond's eyes drifted to the side where Ron was standing with his hips squared off against Malfoy already as if waiting to start a fight.

"Weasley," he snarled.

"Malfoy," Ron snapped back, pulling on the edge of Harry's robe to get him to turn around to avoid his familial enemy, but the Boy Who Lived shook his sleeve out of the ginger's grasp.

"What's going on here?"

"Harry, you shouldn't be fraternizing with a Gryffindor, muggle-loving, traitorous family like the Weasleys. Someone of your status could do much better."

"Harry, you shouldn't hang out with that Slytherin git. His family's all Death Eaters."

Harry stared at his two friends as if they were closets that housed Boggarts. "I know about the Death Eaters. They're a really good roller derby team."

Ron raised his eyebrows and shook his head before reaching for Harry's cloak again. "They do more than skate."

"Come with me, Harry," Draco whimpered. Harry bit his lip in admiration of Draco's irrestible puppy dog face but was interrupted by the appearance of Professor McGonagal who waited to talk to t he students while a boy ran around chasing a toad.

The frizzy-haired girl from before whine, "Oh, Neville" as he continued running until McGonagal cleared her throat.

"Welcome students, to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In a moment, I will lead you into the Great Hall where I will call you up one-by-one to be sorted by the Sorting Hat. Once the hat tells you which house he has chosen for you, please sit at that table. Shall we begin?" She winked, the first sign of jollity from the Scottish madam, and turned on her heel towards the Great Hall.

Ron got lost among the other students, and the throng kept Harry from progressing all that much. However, he still had Draco at his side.

"Hoping for Slythering, right, Harry?"

With those dashing blue eyes and bleached hair, it was impossible for Harry to say no to him.

"Of course."

"Then you're on the right track. Y'know, my father was worried about you, but he shouldn't be. You will be a great addition to our roller derby team once we get back home. You will be-wow!" Draco's passionate babbling was interrupted by their entrance into the Great Hall. "I never knew it would look like this," the blond muttered with his head tilted back to see the floating candles amidst a cloudy night sky. Harry looked ahead at them, over his peers' heads and admired the long oak tables that sat hundreds of students, all of which, according to Draco, would love him just because his parents were famous skaters.

McGonnagal cleared her throat for the reading of the names and called up a girl with curly blond hair. Pansy wove her way through the crowd, muttering a few curses and stepping on a few feet as she went, so taht she could stand next to Draco and even take his hand before Harry watched as he smacked her away.

The frizzy girl and the toad boy both were sorted into Gryffindor, so Draco muttered, "Even more reason not to be a lion, eh?" His skating cronies chuckled, but Harry tried not to laugh to maintain the seriousness of the moment and his own morales.

Draco prodded him in the back and smiled, not knowing the happiness such a small gesture caused his friend, as he took his own seat and gave a cocky shrug when the hat announced, "Slytherin."

Pansy left before Harry and sashayed up to the stool, crossing her legs and placing her hands on top of them before the hat could belt out "Slytherin!" She winked at Draco and rolled her eyes at Harry as she passed him.

"Harry Potter?"

Harry sat down as if the stool was a fragile mushroom and crossed his fingers ever so slightly over each other. Then he heard it.

"Ah... Harry Potter! Your parents were in Gryffindor, eh?"

"I want Slytherin," he whispered.

"Oh, Slytherin? Well, many great wizards have come from Slytherin... but you would excel in Gryffindor!"

"Slytherin, please."

"Harry, Harry, Harry. You do not understand what fates you are playing with. Leave the hard decisions to me. Gryffindor!"

No. No. No.

McGonnagal lifted off the hat and Harry stumbled to the table where Hermione and Neville were already sitting. Draco offered him a shrug from his seat next to Pansy at the Gryffindor table, but Harry had expected so much more. Though he had little experience in the matter, Harry expected a true friend to leap up, outraged, and demand that they be placed in the same houses. Harry had yet to grasp the full scope of how important houses were, but he could already figure out that he may be spending less time with Draco than he would have if he were in Slytherin.

Ron joined their table and offered everyone a smile as his brothers clapped him on the back before Blaise Zabini joined the other Junior Death Eaters and the feast started.

From where he was sitting, Harry could see Draco and promised himself that he would try to sit on this side of the table as much as possible so as to be able to better see the blond-haired boy across the way as much as possible. Throughout dinner, he reminded himself of the great skating lessons they had shared and imagined spending much more time together come summer time. Little did he know that their next skating interaction would come even sooner.

**AN: I own nothing. Like that will protect me from a lawsuit... This is getting harder because there are a lot of canon aspects that I feel should be addressed. I read a Cedric/Harry fic last night where the author included parts of GoF which was cool and different, but they also mentioned that canon was always ruining stuff. Sigh.**


	8. Harry Potter and the First Year

**AN: Hope it hasn't been too long since I've update! Only a week, right? I am trying to write longer chapters because people seem to like that... Authors that I read are always apologizing for short chapters but some of those tend to be longer than my longest chapter. Do I not write enough? If so, please tell me! This one is going to be, you could say, fragmented, meaning it will have snapshots of Harry's first year, so I can get on to his summer in the next chapter :)**

Harry Potter and the Second Skating Lesson**  
**

The next time that Harry saw Draco was on the roller rink just next to Hogwarts that had been refinished that summer and glinted in the sun, causing some of the girls to squeal when the light hit their eyes. Madam Hooch strode to the center of the rink and sighed at the motley assemblage of first years before her. Most of them sat on the rink, sliding their feet back in forth in their skates, but a select group of Slytherins plus Harry stood proudly at the end of the line with their own skates already laced up.

Hooch knew these kids: future Death Eaters. They even had the black skates with silver laces already. She instructed them to help the other students with their skates as she too knelt down and started tying laces. Parkinson groaned and whine about having to "touch Gryffindors. They have germs."

Harry skated over to Hermione and tightened her laces for her as she watched with frustration. "I read up on roller skating over the summer, but I could not understand the mechanics of these skates. We don't have many rinks like this where I live."

Ron rolled her eyes at her excuses and managed to stand up on his own, explaining, "My brothers are on the Gryffindor Roller Derby Team. Basically my whole family skates. Besides, you saw me on the train."

Harry laughed at the fond memory and moved onto a black-haired Ravenclaw who hid her face as she blushed in embarrassment at her lack of skill, but he did not take note and was quickly kneeling before the next person, tying up laces twice as fast as the Death Eaters combined.

Satisfied, Hooch skated back and forth in front of the students, many of whom were still sitting down. "Now, on your own, or if you need it, the help of a friend, stand up!" Harry rolled his skates around in place but dared not move out of line as people grabbed at his sleeves to gain some purchase. Hermione managed to get up and gave her two pseudo-friends a smile that they returned.

In the background was a long length of rink only about two yards wide but at least a kilometer long. Harry eyed it with impatience and nodded his head at it so that Draco could see it too. "Race ya, Potter?"

"You wish," Harry whispered back. _I wish_.

Madam Hooch caught them talking and gave them a glare, staring daggers as sharp as her tufts of hair. She tended to a squirrely group on the end who kept falling, almost in amusement, every time she stood them up. One of them, who was most certainly giving it his best effort, Neville Longbottom, fell on his bum and screamed out in pain, moaning about his tail bone.

The teacher rolled her eyes but bit her lip to compose herself to keep from screeching like a merperson.

"I need Madam Pomfrey," Neville cried.

"Class? Stay here! I must take Mr. Longbottom to the nurse's ward." She scooped him up in her strong arms and skated away, happy for the escape even under the circumstances.

Then Draco was off, yelling, "Let's go, Harry!" The other Death Eaters started to move towards them, but Crabbe and Goyle fell down and Draco turned around to motion for them to stay put.

Hermione pouted her lips in dislike of Draco's idea, but Harry shrugged at her and sped out to accept Draco's outstretched hand. Any excuse to hold hands with the young Adonis was worth making.

The two boys picked up speed, pushing off in time, right feet, left feet, until Draco asked, "Ready?" and flung Harry out straight on the expanse of flat rink that stretched out for a kilometer.

The younger boy spread out his arms and spun in circles, digging down his heel to increase his rotation.

"I missed this," Draco said with his eyes to the sky. "Ready to race?"

Harry nodded, lost for words as the sun hit Draco at every angle, highlighting his best features: all of them.

They set their toes on the same invisible line and took the same pose with one leg back and an arm held behind them in preparation. Blaise screamed, "Go," from the sideline and they were off! Draco smiled at Harry as they started off in sync with each other before Harry took advantage of his friend's concern and pushed off ahead of him. Draco lowered his center of gravity and started off again, unable, though, to catch up to Harry who was ten meters ahead. Whereas racing before had just been about him and Draco, this time, Harry risked his parent's reputation, and he knew that his friend would still hang around him even if he lost. Which he did.

Harry passed the finish line in a frenzy of shouting from Gryffindors and foreign expletives from the rest of the Death Eaters who did not understand why Draco wrapped Harry in a hug once he finished too. With his glasses barely hanging on, Harry reached his arms around Draco and let his eyes close even though he knew that the other boy was just high on endorphins.

But something interrupted their happiness: an "Ahem."

The boys detached to wheel around and face a narrow-eyed McGonagal who was tapping her foot with tartan robes. "Boys?"

"Hello, Professor."

She closed her eyes and pursed her lips. "Come with me. The rest of you-" she waved her hands at the rest of the class "-need to wait here for Madam Hooch who has informed me via patronus that she is returning from the hospital ward."

The trio left the rest of the class muttering about what a Patronus was. McGonagal hustled to keep up with the boys who skated languidly at her sides with no idea where they were going. They passed a charms classroom that the professor ducked into to request the presence of a Marcus Flint and Oliver Wood. Draco whispered to Harry that those boys were the Roller Derby captains of their houses. McGonagal raised an eyebrow at him before leading them into an empty classroom to wait.

The boys sat down at the table in front of the teacher's desk where McGonagal sat with their feet rolling back and forth on the stone floor. The captains entered the room with their eyes on each other like drawn fists, but they toned down the glaring as McGonagal addressed them, "Marcus, Oliver, are either of your teams in need of a jammer?"

"Naw, Professor, I've got Higgs," Marcus drawled before being dismissed.

"I do not, Professor. We lost Charlie Weasley last year." Oliver informed her.

"Draco, you may return to class," the professor instructed him. "But Harry... stay here." She raised her thin eyebrows and waited for Draco to give Harry a pat on the back and skate out of the class. "Wood, I have found you a new jammer. Potter's the fastest skater I've seen in a while, and judging by his last name, he has a lot of potential."

Wood walked around to the front of the desk and squatted down to get a good look at Harry. "Oi! Potter! Merlin's beard! You wanna skate for the team?"

Harry detected a Scottish accent in the cute boy but shook his head to clear it out thoughts of what the boy looked like under those robes. "Sure!"

Oliver Wood looked to their Head of House for confirmation and then gave the young boy a handshake. "Welcome to the team."

* * *

"Eh, Harry," Draco whispered to his friend in passing in the hallway, "meet me after dinner to come to a party tonight."

Before Harry could respond, his friend was gone.

Dinner passed like charms class with even more bickering from Ron and Hermione who were still divided over whether or not Harry should skate for the team. Harry tuned them out because he already knew that Ron would say Harry was even faster than his older brother Charlie and Hermione would say that he should focus on his classes instead of skating, a stupid sport to begin with.

"Are you 'earing this, Harry?" Ron demanded with a knife in his hand, supposedly to cut his chicken.

Harry would have responded more fully but right as Ron spoke, a large group of Slytherins left their seats and trailed out of the Hall, so he muttered, "I'll be fine. I'm tired, though, see you later."

Hermione yelled something after him to rest up for the game tomorrow, but he barely heard it as laughs about unforgivable curses and hexes assualted his ears from the Slytherin entourage. Draco spotted him and pulled him closer to the center to disguise him as they descended into the depths of the dungeons, far away from the potions classroom. A seventh year muttered the password and a stone wall slid apart to reveal a gloomy castle with dusty mirrors and a blue fire already flickering in the fireplace. Draco grabbed Harry by the arm and led him down the stairs where some other students were already gathered, most of them on his father's roller derby team. They passed around a bottle of firewhiskey along with bottles of butterbeer that foamed over once opened, but Harry declined it all which led to exclamations about his first match tomorrow.

"Pity the Slytherin team didn't have room," Pansy, the only person who had objected to Harry's attendance, moaned with a hand playing with Draco's hair as she lay on top of his bed while he sat on the floor.

"Yeah, you would've been selected, Draco," Harry added as if agreeing with Pansy might make the girl detest him a little bit less.

Draco shrugged and redirected the conversation away from himself and towards the incompetence of Professor Flitwick. He slid around the room to be closer to Harry and pressed his nose to the other boy's cheek. "Good luck tomorrow. I hope you beat us. We don't deserve to-"

His encouragement was interrupted by screaming upstairs and a scrambling within the room to hide under beds and blankets as shouts of "Teacher" floated up from the common room. Both Harry and Draco dove under the covers and pressed up against each other to appear as one body. Draco muttered, "Nox," and all of the candles flickered out in the room. Whoever the teacher was, someone with a lighter voice then Snape, trudged down the stairs and stopped at the first year's landing. He muttered, "Trust the first years to behave themselves and then continued back up to the common room to discipline the rule-breakers there. All of the kids cast lumos and Millicent went around with a match to relight the candles as they all emerged from their hiding places.

"Who was that?" Harry asked.

Zabini curled his lip and snarled, "Filch. The filthy squib of Hogwarts." All of the Slytherins smirked at Blaise's pure-blood prejudice, but not many smiles crossed their lips after that. Goyle collected all the empty bottles and tossed them under his bed which was collecting quite a pile of trash. Other than a few remarks about the weather, the conversation died. Filch had killed the mood. Harry took one last look at Draco before venturing out of the room to check at the top of the stairs to make sure Filch was gone and then sprint back to the Hogwarts common room with minutes to spare, cutting it so close that Ron was already in bed when he got back.

* * *

The day of the match, Harry was about to follow the rest of the team into their locker rooms when someone tapped him on the shoulder and whispered, "Good luck" before walking away. Harry watched Draco's blond head go away as he stepped inside. Katie was already lacing up her skates with the guys, so Harry dropped his bag next to her and sat down on the bench to put on his skates.

She raised an eyebrow at him as he double knotted his laces. "When d'ya get those skates, Harry?"

Harry looked back at the girl with the big eyes and jet black hair. "A friend gave 'em to me this summer."

"You'll be wanting some new ones."

"Um, I guess-"

"Katie, stop bugging him. Your skate's are fine, Harry. Now let's beat some Slytherins!"

The twins started a raucous cheer, but Angelina and Alicia came back from the bathroom to quiet them down and whisk Katie away as Oliver led them out to the rink. The gingers bemoaned their fate one last time before lining up with one on the rink and another on the bench with Katie, "Nothing rhymes with Gryffindor!" The crowd adapted into a chant carried more than the quarter of the arena occupied by Gryffindors.

Harry eyed the opposing jammer and attempted to offer him up a smile, but he merely stared back with the blank face of concentration. The gun went off and his team started pushing him ahead while skating in front of the other jammer to let him get ahead. The Slytherins closde in on Harry, but all of them combined are slower than Draco and nowhere near as good looking, so he kicked it into high gear and rounedd the first two corners in seconds before using the straightaway as extra charge. The last two corners came as easy as riding a hyppogriff, and soon he is crossing the line to set himself as the lead jammer.

The other jammer escaped the Gryffindor posse and attempted to retake Harry even as the boy racked up points with each lap, evading the Slytherin hoodlums with natural ease. One time when lapping the other jammer, Harry heard Oliver shout to him, "Make your parents proud" before sliding in front of the other jammer and even turning around to skate backwards in a sort of intimidation move.

With each lap, the crowd got louder until Harry could not distinguish between boos and hisses and shouts of jubilation. The score climbed up and up to Harry's surprise (Wood had told him that most scores are very close and it comes down to the last seconds). As the allotted thirty minutes wound down, it seemed that the Slytherins lost steam even though they had been practicing for hours at a time while Harry had only had one practice beforehand that barely lasted an hour and entailed even less skating time.

When the buzzer rang, the youngest jammer Hogwarts had seen in years barely heard it over the shouting and did not know that the match had ended until his team was criss-crossing across the rink to congratulate him on an amazing win! Slytherin did not even bother to shake hands with the victors before storming off and leaving the Gryffindors to hoist Harry up above their heads where he could see the only Slytherin in the arena who was smiling: Draco.


	9. Harry Potter and the (Truth)

**AN: Sorry this chapter is short, but I did not feel as if it fit with the previous one, and I am posting them on the same day, so you will have another in a week, don't worry.**

**Chapter Nine: Harry Potter and the (Truth)**

"Harry! Harry! He's awake! He's awake!"

"Mr. Malfoy, if you would, please settle down, I would like a word with Harry," Dumbledore intoned with lazy calmness as he pawed through Harry's gifts.

"Draco? Professor?" Harry rubbed at his eyes as everything slid into focus. Draco leaned towards him from the edge of the bed with tear-stained eyes, gripping the scratchy blanket. "What is going on?"

"Harry, what was it like? Are you okay? Can you still skate?"

Dumbledore sighed and let Madam Pomfrey escort Draco out of the Hospital ward much to his chagrin.

"Did I defeat him, sir?"

Dumbledore held up a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans with an inquisitive look, and Harry nodded.

"For now, yes, you defeated him."

"Who is he, exactly?"

"Voldemort?"

"Is that his name?"

Dumbledore popped a rainbow of candies into his mouth with a nod. "He is the man who was driving the car that killed your parents. He is a very dark wizard and roller derby champion. He wants you dead, Harry. Voldemort meant to kill you the night that your parents died, but you somehow survived."

Harry took a deep breath in that hurt his chest cavity that felt incredibly bruised.

"But do not worry, Harry. He is defeated right now. You will be safe now."

"Why did he want to kill my family?"

"I cannot tell you, Harry, but you will find out in due time. All in due time." He patted the least-injured part of the boy, his foot and left without another word.

When Harry was released from the Hospital Wing, he was greeted at the door by Ron and Hermione who had been barred from entry because of their too-frequent visits. They helped him carry his get well gifts back to the Common Room and talked with him until dinner about what all that had happened.

Even though it was nice to be together as a trio, Harry missed Draco, but he knew that he would see him again that summer.


	10. Harry Potter and the Return

**AN: Thanks for reading! You are all so supportive, and I love watching your reviews and follows come in. DFTBA. Don't forget to be awesome.**

****Chapter 10: Harry Potter and the Return from Hogwarts

The first day after he got back at an ungodly hour from Hogwarts, Harry skated over to the roller rink that he had missed so much during his school year. He did not bother to make breakfast for his relatives or even wish them a good morning before lacing up and heading out to prolong his avoidance of them as long as possible.

The rink lacked the stateliness of the Hogwarts arena, but the green and silver bricks were a welcome sight even if the parking lot has been cultivating weeds since his last visit. Harry found the door locked but hoped that Draco wouldn't mind him using a simple Alohamora to open it. The place reeked of dust and allergies; he coughed as he skated around the entrance area to the arcade in the back.

"Draco?" He called. He knew that it was early yet, but that boy certainly did not need any more beauty sleep. There's a limit on how handsome someone can be. "Draco?"

Harry jumped over the ledge from the carpet to the rink and stopped in his tracks once he looked up. Draco was lying in the middle of the floor with his skates on his feet but his knees pulled to his chest, wearing only his boxers.

Harry rushed to his side to check that he was breathing and sighed in relief when the blond's toned chest rose and fell. The black-haired boy settled back onto his heels and then sat with his legs pulled to his chest to watch his friend/crush.

Sun glittered in through the window, sparkling off the trophies on the wall and the metallic paint of the counters, but none of that brilliant light woke the boy. Harry imagined Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy apparating back home with Draco last night once the train arrived in the dark and then not noticing when he snuck out here to finally skate on his home turf again. Harry understood. He had practically done the same thing.

Chancing to stroke the boy's cheek as he slept, Harry reached out his hand but was stopped when Draco rolled over towards him and then stretched himself out. Harry started scrambling backwards to avoid shocking the other skate, but Draco's eyes fluttered open before he could get more than two meters away.

"Harry?"

"Um, hi, Draco." Oh, how sweet that name sounded on his lips! "I'm sorry that I just barged in here. I just wanted to skate."

"Sorry?" Draco clambered to his feet and adjusted the waist band of his boxers before waving his hands around in sleepy movements. "Don't be sorry. I was skating last night. At one point I fell, and then I guess I fell asleep." He rubbed his eyes and took one final shoulder stretch before placing his hands on his hips and starting to skate in a line absentmindedly until him and harry were just close enough for comfort. "Have you 'ad breakfast?"

"Um, yeah."

Draco sighed and looked towards the door that led to there home. "Well, I obviously haven't. If you wanna skate around, you can, but I'm gonna get something to eat."

"Skating can wait." Harry shook his head. Merlin, he need a haircut, but he liked to think that Draco fancied long hair. "I just really wanted to, um, see you, er, um, hang out."

Draco nodded and led him off into the depths of the maze behind the rink. "Sounds good. I could use some relaxation after everything. You're okay, right? Your arm's better?"

Harry shook it to demonstrate its regained strength even though an ache still nagged at his elbow and tried not to let Draco see him grimace. He had taken off the sling last night so that he could return to skating. His aunt and uncle were never the wiser.

"Well, you know, just take it easy. I would rather just do some endurance training today rather than speed or skill."

"Oh, righ'."

"Remember," Draco warned him as he pulled out Harry's chair at a jade breakfast table, "I am still your coach."

Harry nodded his head in agreement as a house elf brought Draco a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon that he bit into immediately. "Ugh, Dobby, this is nowhere near as good as the food at Hogwarts, and you've forgotten to offer Harry anything."

"Oh, really, I'm full still," Harry muttered as the creature turned around in a circle to feast his eyes on the Boy Who Lived.

"Harry? Harry Potter?"

"Er, yeah." Harry shrugged and let his feet slide back and forth on the stone floor.

"Stop your staring and go clean up the kitchen!"

Dobby started wringing his hands and then scurried off through a small tunnel in the corner behind a ficus.

"Sorry about him," Draco apologized. "He's always underfoot. I keep telling Father to get a new one, but he's been with the family for too long and Father won't hear of it."

Harry cast his eyes down to his lap so that Draco could not see his disappointment that his cherished friend had been so rude. Sure, he had already seen him go at Ron, but there the feeling was mutual and Ron could certainly fend for himself. Here. Dobby was already a helpless minority, so Draco was kicking him while he was down.

"You all right, Harry?" Draco asked through a mouthful of crunchy bacon that was still delicious despite not being of Hogwarts caliber.

"Um, do you, well, always treat him like that?"

"Yes," Draco replied as if Harry had just asked him whether or not McGonagal was a cat.

"Oh."

"You alright?"

Harry chuckled at his childish show of emotion and placed his hands in his pockets to stop their fidgeting. "Yeah, still waking up I guess."

Draco nodded and polished off the rest of his food before leaving his empty plate on the table and leading Harry down a ramp to a dimly lit room that he quickly illuminated with what he called a Deluminator. "Welcome to Casa del Draco," he said with bravado as he spread his arms wide and skated across the vast room to a walk in closet.

Harry ran his hand along silver-stitched wallpaper covered in pictures of Draco's family, all unsmiling, and posters of famous Wizard Racers with competitive looks on their faces. On the side wall, trophies had been positioned across from the window wells so that any light that did come in reflected off their gold surfaces. All of them had a plaque on the bottom, and most of them read a variation of: DRACO MALFOY Winner of the Malfoy Roller Derby Competition with different dates and age groups in the bottom lines.

Draco emerged from his closet with a handful of clothes and started stripping down, explaining, "Oh, yeah, the trophies. I always win the competitions here, so Father has the plaques done up beforehand."

"Impressive," Harry replied as he kept his eyes locked on the figurines of skaters even as a naked Draco danced in and out of his peripheral.

The blond god broke his trance with a light punch on the shoulder as he skated towards the exit. Harry followed the path of Draco's skates as they pushed him forward with every stroke, focusing his eyes on the boy's exposed ankles. When they returned to the rink, the rest of the Slytherin ex-first years was waiting outside the door. Draco reprimanded them, "Don't you know alohamora?"

Pansy tried to kiss him on the cheek as she walked past before he skated backwards, and she replied, "Do you seriously think that I paid attention to a word that bumbling idiot said? Why will I have to know charms when I am a professional roller skater?" The gang rolled their eyes and collectively moaned which put Pansy on the defensive. "What? You don't think I'll go pro?"

"Pansy," Draco assured her, "none of us think you will go pro. You'll have to work hard to even be considered for my father's team." The group erupted into laughter as she sneered but let Draco lead her to the rink with an arm around her shoulder.

"Well, we can't all be Harry Frickin' Potter! You know, if I had raced him, Flint would have certainly let me on the team."

"Pans, there was no room."

Harry added as he started on his laps, "That's why Draco didn't make their team. They already had a jammer."

Pansy snorted but regained her composure before turning on the charm. "Well, you'll make it next year, Dracie."

Draco shrugged her off his arm and started following Harry around the rink, explaining to Blaise the plan to build up endurance while Crabbe and Goyle sat out with Millicent. They claimed that they were still recovering from the train ride home, but judging by their skill as seen in the roller skating course at Hogwarts, their interest had flagged greatly. Pansy kept glaring at Harry but joined in with the quartet of skaters anyway even as she started to fall behind and be lapped by the boys even though they were taking today at a slower pace.

After about twenty five laps, the kids were startled as a door rattled in the back and Lucius emerged in black robes. "Kids," he addressed them with a nod. "Glad to be back?"

They all nodded with their shoulders back and hands clasped behind their backs in forced respect.

"Good. I'm not going to open up today, so you guys can skate all you want, but be ready to work tomorrow."

"Yes, Mr. Malfoy," the Slytherins chorused.

"Oh, and Harry?" He added before apparating to the Ministry for work. "Would you like a job, too?"

"Oh, yes, sir, that would be very generous of you."

"I could use someone like you to teach or something. Some of these others are useless and many of my other instructors are, shall we say, occupied. By the way, how did you like Gryffindor?"

"Well, it's no Slytherin," Harry lied with a forced smile.

"You're right," Malfoy muttered. "Smart boy. Train hard, kids." Then, with a pop, he was gone.

All the kids tried to resume their skating, but it took a few laps for them to fall back into it and it took a whole lot of restraint on Pansy's part to not bring up the idea of expelling Potter from the rink for being a Gryffindor. But Draco wanted him there, and that was all that mattered.


	11. Harry Potter and the Heir

**AN: I am pretty tired today... Not really... Just thought I would change it up... Didn't want to start off with the typical 'thanks for reading'. I understand that many of you are very against ellipses, and I try to avoid them, so sorry for the excess above. Now, would you like me to babble some more or would you like the next story?**

**_Muy Importante: I need your opinion! I had this idea for another Drarry fic where Draco is a policeman and Harry is living in the unsafe area of London and romantics and gay sex ensue. (It would be rated M, so if you don't like that stuff, I am sorry.) So, my dilemma is whether to start it now or to wait until after I finish my Dramione fic (sorry! I do not really ship them, they just fit the fic idea!) or do I start it now and maybe update that every weekend too as I have been doing with this fic? Your opinion will be considered! Really, if one of you says yes, I will write a chapter for it this weekend. Anyway, let's get to the story._**

Chapter 11: Harry Potter and the Heir

Sitting around the cauldron in the girl's bathroom, the trio each presented their final points in a mild argument that had been going on for a few days. Harry was convinced that Hermione and Ron were being prats about this whole Heir of Slytherin thing. There was no way that Draco, his biggest crush ever, had any ties to the petrifications! Ron, however, was vehement that the opposite was true. Harry had decided long ago that Ron was ramrod straight and could not see Draco's beauty let alone his brilliantly kind personality.

Hermione muttered, "Harry, we know that you are friends with Draco, but most evil people have friends. That is how they gain their power. Few people can have such an influence all by themselves."

Harry slammed his fists against one of the sinks. "Don't you understand that he's just a kid like us! He has hopes and dreams and would never hurt anyone!"

"Oh, there are some people I would like to hurt," Ron corrected him. "Including Draco. Y'know Harry, you've been sticking up for him and awful lot lately. It's like you're obsessed!" He started laughing to himself to lighten the mood as he usually hid and hugged his sides for dramatic effect as Hermione rolled her eyes and set back to reading. "It's like you've got a crush!"

Both of the others erupted at this, but of course for different reasons. Luckily for Harry, Hermione took the lead, bashing Ron's apathy with "Would you sober up? You seem more drunk than my mum's Uncle Albert. I think all these potion fumes are getting to you."

"What? Harry's just a little too close to this Malfoy character. He's bad news. All Slytherins are. His whole family comes from a line of people who were practically born in Knockturn Alley. Remember? Harry saw the Malfoys in that terrible shop?"

"I'm still here!" Harry shouted! "And I would prefer it if you would wait to talk about me behind my back once I left, which I think I will do quite soon if you two don't shut up."

Hermione raised her hands in the air for silence. "Alright! We will terminate the discussion as long as we can agree that we should still finish the potion and put it to use as planned after all of our, well, my hard work!"

"Fine!" Ron said gruffly as he leaned against a stall door and ignored the titterings of Moaning Myrtle from the toilet behind him. "So, how about those Chudley Cannons!"

"Oh Ron!" Harry exclaimed, perching on top of a sink with his smile finally returning. "They are the worst derby team ever! Even the Hufflepuffs are better than them!"

Hermione chided him for his Hufflepuff-bashing, reminding him of their loyalty, but Harry and Ron rudely mimicked her while she added the final ingredient to the potion.

"I mean, if their jammer could actually skate, they might be able to beat a Junior Team or something, but the poor guy falls down on every curve, Ron. It's like they don't even practice!"

"Come on, they have perseverance and a great fan following!"

"By fan following, do you mean yourself?"

"Naw! They are the best! They just haven't gotten their chance to shine! All underdogs have to suffer before they rise to fame."

"So you admit they're the underdogs?"

"Boys! We should leave now. It's almost time for bed and I am done with the potion for the day."

The two laughed at Hermione childishly to suggest that they did not need to take orders from her, but they obliged and even let her drape her arms across their shoulders as they walked back to the Common Room. En route, they passed a group of second year Slytherins, Draco and Pansy included. Draco smiled at Harry but quickly squinted in disgust when he saw his company. He promptly snaked his arm around Pansy's waist much to her delight and carted her off towards the dungeons. Inside his gut, Harry burned with Gryffindor fury and Slytherin ambition. Maybe the Sorting Hat had been right to put him with the passionate house.

* * *

Oliver Wood had just launched into a dramatic speech as his team attempted to avoid him while doing warm up laps around the rink when the Slytherins showed up, in full uniform and everything.

"Oliver!" Marcus Flint shouted. Merlin the oaf had a voice to match his ugly face! "Professor Snape has given us permission to use the rink at this time to try out our new skates and new seeker." As if on cue, the Slytherins each stuck out their right feet and slid up their pant legs to show off the new Boa Constrictor 2000 skates. "They're a gift from the Malfoys, as if, you could say, their new jammer." Marcus reached into his throng of skaters and pulled a confident Draco to the front.

Harry stopped where he was and nodded to his friend. "Hello, Draco."

"Potter." The boy sneered.

The Boy Who Lived cringed at the sound of such disdain coming from his comrade. Had all of their skating lessons together meant nothing? Had Draco found out about the Polyjuice Potion?

"Flint, if you think for one second that I will let you use this space when we have a race tomorrow, you are a f-"

"Whoa, watch it, Wood. I have a signed letter from Professor Snape himself."

"I don't need your bloody letter. I need the rink!" The twins flew into action and grabbed Oliver by the elbows to drag him off the rink, glaring at the Slytherins all the way. The girls sped after them, but Harry stayed behind, caught in staring at Draco.

"Well, see you tomorrow, Draco." Harry shrugged, but was met with another terse "Potter" and tried to ignore his feelings of betrayal as he pushed himself off the rink to the locker room where Oliver was in a locker-slamming rage.

He screamed at Harry before leaving, "Go do sprints on the straightaway behind the rink! I want you at your best for the race tomorrow!" The twins patted the young kid on the back and each girl gave him a hug before he skated off to follow Oliver's orders.

From the straight track, he could see the Slytherins practicing, blocking each other and attempting to block Draco to prepare him for the twin's recklessness, but he quickly skated away from them with fierce agility that Harry had learned from him.

Every so often, Harry would forget that he was supposed to be doing sprints and shake himself out of his lust for Draco before setting his feet in position and then pushing off, envisioning the cute blond at the end of his track. Each spring took its toll on him until he was panting before he even got started, but he kept going until he collapsed. At that point, the cheers and grunts had subsided from the rink to be replaced by the quiet lullaby of sliding skates nearby. He rolled his head to the side as he regained his breath to take in the beauty of a sweaty Draco gliding towards him. The blond grabbed him under the arms and swung him up into an unintentional hug as he balanced himself out.

"How was practice?" Harry managed to ask.

Draco chuckled at his friend's over exertion, all the hostility of earlier finally gone. "Fine. But we'll see how I do against the Weasley twins. Those boys play rough."

Harry sighed as Draco disentangled them from each other but put his hands on his knees before continuing, "I'll tell them to go easy on you."

"Yeah, right! The Weasleys hate the Malfoys! Those boys play for blood. Besides, I hear that the Gryffindor team has a great jammer who was on the team as a first year."

Harry pretended to play dumb, angling his dark green eyes towards Draco for the full effect. He was barely old enough to be able to recognize flirting, but he sure hope that this was it. "Oh really? I hear that the Slytherin jammer could win on looks alone."

Draco laughed. Jokes about homosexuality were funny to young boys like him, but not Harry. Each joke just made him more insecure and he had not meant the comment to be funny. Every time he ventured to compliment Draco, he simultaneously hoped that the boy would get the hint and also brush it off as humor.

"Well, good luck tomorrow, Harry. And never forget to thank your coach for training you so well."

"Thanks, Dray."

The blond did not even flinch at the endearing nickname.

Harry had seen muggle movies about figure skating many a time, and in them, this moment was always where the pretty girl kissed the guy who drove the zamboni or ran concessions, but he could not see any romance for him and Draco that day.

He carried on the rest of the afternoon in a haze, barely even attempting his homework before sitting himself down behind Hermione to copy hers and going to bed before the sun was down. At breakfast, he stuffed his face full of toast and gained Oliver's approval for stocking up on so many carbs. At some point, he remembered Hermione trying to break him from his trance, but he could barely register her annoyance, he was too focused on saving up his energy for this match.

Ron had to practically dress him and let his older brothers carry him down to the locker room where they splashed some water on his face and gave him what they called pumpkin juice, much to the girl's chagrin.

Harry started warming up after that, turning figure eights and swiveling around the sweaty floor, testing out his renewed energy. Oliver arrived right as the young boy started practicing jumps.

"Whoa, Potter. Don't wear yourself out!"

The glasses-boy beamed up at him. "Not possible, Oliver! I had my toast and I am ready to beat some Slytherins!"

The whole room cheered with gusto and Wood clapped him on the back, "Now that's the kind of enthusiasm I would like to hear! This reminds me of my..." The team settled down to seats on benches as their captain spewed motivational mumbo jumbo and managed to create puns involving the Quidditch Cup, but sprung up once he told them to head out to the rink.

Harry barely registered who else was on the rink from his team before he locked eyes with Draco who was jumping up and down on his skates to warm up. Madam Hooch stood in the middle of the rink and counted down with her whistle in hand before starting the clock and spinning around with the force of wind that followed the start off of the skaters.

Even though a circle has no end, Harry imagined Draco at the end of each lap and that pushed him to speed up even as the other boy fell a few seconds behind and the Slytherin team crowded around him. Once the two boys were skating on opposite sides of the rink, Harry half a lap ahead of Draco, the Slytherin team turned to Plan B. They skated backwards and sideways to create a wall around Draco so that he could catch up to Harry and avoid the Weasleys who already had scratches across their faces from an angry Slytherin.

With no defense fighting against him, Harry breezed on past and racked up lap after lap, so the Slytherins turned to Plan C with barely a minute left once they managed to slow down enough that Harry skated right into their pack. He threw his elbows out for protection and ducked his head to keep his center of gravity low as he let muscle memory take over in guiding him in circles to earn one last point before the buzzer rang. The crowd counted down from ten, and Harry set his speed at max capacity.

"Ten!" Flint closed in on him with a deadly glare in his eyes, sticking his skates out at odd angles to try to trip him.

"Nine!"

"Eight!"

"Seven!"

"Six!" Draco pulled his arms in to make himself as small as possible to avoid the Weasley twins and struggled to not slow to a glide in the last few seconds.

"Five!"

"Four!"

"Three!"

"Two!"

"One!" Flint's foot jutted out right in front of Harry who tumbled across the finish line, barely snagging one last point and definitely breaking something that snapped with a crack that sent even the Slytherins away in disgust!

His head fell back against the rink as images floated in and out of his periphery. Lockhart muttered over him, and he heard the protests of Hermione and Ron as their professor attempted a bone-healing charm. The next thing he knew, Harry had lost all feeling in his arm and woke up in the hospital wing with a gross potion but a beautiful blond in front of him.

A group of gingers wrestled the Slytherin out of the way and barraged Harry with questions. He answered each with half-consciousness and only remembered Hermione's comment: "The potion will be ready the day you get out. Sweet dreams."

* * *

Moaning Myrtle peered over Hermione's shoulder as the young witch filled each grimy glass with the muck and dropped in hairs that made it bubble.

"Are you sure you didn't just scoop up some lake scum?" Ron inquired as he contemplated plugging his nose to down the drink.

"Stop it, Ronald," Hermione muttered as each of them found a stall for themselves. "Drink it and change into your Slytherin robes. You may want to derobe before turning into Crabbe or Goyle. They are quite, um, large. Bottoms up!"

Each boy rolled their eyes but pinched their noses before downing the liquid. To Harry, it tasted worse than dish water he sometimes resorted to drinking at the Dursley's when he was washing the dishes and was prohibited from getting himself a glass of juice. He pressed his palms flat against the bathroom wall as he started shaking as if from a fever. His glasses fell off and his knees buckled, sending him crashing down naked to the floor where he rolled around in his newfound obesity.

"Blimey!" Ron groaned next door. "Crabbe is an oaf. Bloody hell, how can he live with himself? Hermione, couldn't we have just got their faces and hidden beneath these robes? I feel like a pig!"

A quiet snuffling came from across the room where Hermione was, so each of the boys scrambled to dress themselves before banging on her stall door. "Hermione, what's wrong?"

Myrtle floated out of the wall, whispering, "You don't want to know, and she probably won't tell you. Cat's got her tongue."

"Go on without me," Hermione wailed.

"Come on, Hermione!"

"Go! Or I will never talk to you again!"

Myrtle floated through them and that chill was enough to send them running into the hallway where they ran into each other and got turned around.

"Where are the dungeons?" Ron asked.

"Um, I don't remember... We should ask Hermione." Harry turned to leave, but Ron grabbed him by the back of his robes and pulled him back.

"No! She's a mess! We can do this on our own!"

Harry nodded and the two boys started aimlessly wandering the halls in hopes that someone would pick them up. Draco answered their prayers when he found them ogling the one-eyed witch in confusion.

"Ay! Crabbe! Goyle! Where've you been?" They both turned around. "Why are you wearing glasses, Goyle?"

"Just, um, reading... Can we go back to the dungeons?" He thought quickly on his feet and walked towards the Wizard Apollo.

"Sure... You lost? I knew you two were stupid, but we have been here for two years. Come on." He jerked his head in the opposite direction and started leading them down memory lane, making Harry remember hiding under the covers with his crush to hid from Filch and partying with people he barely called friends but skated with on a regular basis over the summer. Each staircase got darker and darker until sconces lit up the rooms. Draco muttered the password and breathed a sigh of relief as they found the room empty. He lounged on a green leather armchair and ruffled his hair until his cohorts got comfortable.

"You two alright? You're usually chattering about something!"

"Er, you know, long day. Lots of classes."

"We had one, you fool," Draco reprimanded Goyle. Harry could only reassure himself with the thought that if Draco knew it was him, he would treat him with much more respect.

"Takes a lot out of me," Harry lied.

He was about to launch into some babble when Ron changed the subject like a railroad track. "So who do you think the Heir of Slytherin is?" Harry elbowed him in the side but Draco did notice because he responded.

"Well, Father says I shouldn't talk about it, and I did not pay attention to his lectures about lineage enough to know who was a descendant of Salazar. Whoever it is, though, is a true Slytherin! Anyone who is against mudbloods has their priorities straight!"

Ron started at that and nearly jumped out of his seat with his hair turning back to red, so Harry grabbed his arm and pulled him aside, shouting, "We have to go get some food, Draco!"

"We just ate! Goyle, what's that on your forhead?"

Harry's hand jumped to his scar that was slowly returning, and in the split second before they left, he saw recognition flit across Draco's face. Ron collapsed once they had run up the stairs to a broom closet and started breathing regularly again, but Harry was so shaken up he could barely stand. Over and over again, he kept berating himself for betraying Malfoy. If he was going to marry that boy some day, he would have to be more trustworthy.

"Well," Ron huffed, "at least we know that it's not Draco."


	12. Harry Potter and the Jealous Father

**AN: So I am writing this on Sunday to get it down on paper I guess, but it's probably Thursday now, right? I don't even know anymore...Nope, it's Friday.**

Harry Potter and the Jealous Father

Lucius Malfoy almost did not let Harry into the roller rink even though the boy was banging against the door and had not seen Draco for a week while the family had been on vacation in the Alps. The glasses boy had never gotten a chance to apologize to Draco for using the polyjuice potion against him and had already planned a speech to recite: "Draco, you know what I did right? Yeah, I am so sorry that I betrayed you. I have no excuses. I just want you to know that I want to put this behind us, alright, Coach?" However if his crush's father was going to be in the room, his confidence would disappear like a nervous boy whose date's daddy insists on polishing his gun every time this undesirable shows up.

Lucius of course had no idea what antics Harry had been up to, but knew about the lost roller race and had been questioning whether or not he should continue to let the boy skate at his facility. If Harry couldn't skate there, maybe he wouldn't skate anywhere and would then start losing races, but as he ran through his list of reasons to sabotage the boy, Draco rolled in from the hallways and started warming up, thanking his dad for letting Harry in. The older man could not take an argument with his son after a particularly bad one with Narcissa last night. He nodded a hello to his son's competition and then retreated to his bedroom for some more beauty sleep.

Harry rushed to the rink where he grabbed Draco by the shoulders, stopping him mid-lap. "Draco, you know what I did, right?"

"Yeah, with the snake... It was all my parents could take about during our vacation... Looking for some brownie points? A pat on the back? That's not like you." Draco smiled at him like a clerk ringing up a customer buying a heart-shaped box of chocolates on Valentine's day.

"No, no, no to all of that. Um, the other thing. You know about that, right?"

Draco wriggled free of his friend's grasp, his calm smile replaced with the Malfoy sneer. "Can we stop talking about that race? I've already suffered enough for it at the hands of my father. I don't need you rubbing it in my face. So you won, just don't forget where you came from! You would be nothing without me!"

"I didn't meant that either. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up." Harry reached out a tentative hand even as Draco turned away from him to start up his laps again. :I just want to know, then, that if I ever hurt you, I'm sorry."

A twelve-year old boy such as their peers would have laughed at Harry's sentimentality, but it touched Draco so much that he almost lost his balance in rounding a turn at a tortoise speed. "Thank you, Harry, and let me tell you that I will never try to hurt you either, and I will take full blame for any of my mistakes that affect you."

The mature air swirled around them as they breathed in and out. To Harry, this was how people committed to a relationship talked, and even though his relationship was only as a friend to Draco, he could not help but hope that this was laying the groundwork for something greater along the road.

Draco slid his hands into his pockets and changed the subject with a slow "So..." He had felt the stillness surround them and had become uncomfortable with how perfect it felt to be completely truthful with his friend from whom he hid so much. He had good reason, though! If Harry knew what his family had done to the Potters and other innocents, the skating prodigy may never return, or so Draco thought. The young boy would have had no way of knowing that nothing short of death could of kept Harry from wanting to be with Draco.

The other Slytherins started to trail into the rink, only Blaise carrying his skates. The rest of them, even Pansy, were resigned to their fate of being the kids who would forever say, "Well, I used to skate, but then I didn't have time for it" when the subject of roller derby was brought up in conversation. Pansy did not even bother to hug Draco or otherwise show that she still felt power over his feelings before holing herself up in the ticket booth with Millicent where the girls would read Witch Weekly in between waves of customers. Blaise laced up his skates to get ready to teach lessons while the remanining two cronies planted themselves behind the Concessions counter.

"So..." Harry echoed Draco.

"There's race coming up in a few weeks. Do you think you'd want to do it? It's not a team thing, just a straightaway. It would be an all day thing. I went to once before when I was younger. Everyone races at least once but then people start getting eliminated. You and I would probably make it to the finals for our age group, and you might even beat some older kids' times. You in?"

Spending a whole day with Draco just skating probably all alone! Harry would never wish to win the lottery ever if he could have this one privilege! "Yes! I mean..." Merlin, he had to tone it down. Draco would think he was turning into a fangirl or worse, Colin Creevey. "Sure, that sounds fun."

"Great." Draco punched his shoulder as he skated past to open the doors to the public. July 2nd. Just come over here and my dad will drop us off at the competition."

The customers flooded in, most of them being dragged around by little kids who the three boys would have to teach well lest they wanted a bunch of helicopter parents buzzing around their heads. Harry took a drink of water to clear his head before he started slaloming to finish his warm up and skated circles around Blaise who was the picture of professionalism with his hands on his hips and a flat line where a smile should have been. Harry almost told him to lighten up, but the kids were already lining up, so he skated over to give them obligatory high fives and start running a few simple drills.

His lesson carried on robotically with him mindlessly uprighting seven-year olds and narrowly avoid tripping over his students while his thoughts focused on the upcoming day with Draco. The boy had even been nice enough to concede that Harry would be the one to break the records, not him! Harry led the kids in a line around the rink and almost did not notice when they all fell behind.

Draco gave him a good-hearted smile from across the room, and even Blaise did not seem to mind the obstacles of falling kids from Harry's class. The kids scrambled off the rink into their mothers' waiting arms when the clock struck 10 and the Hogwarts students took a break off the rink as the free skate time started.

"You know," Blaise moaned, "instead of Adult Skate, we should have a time where we can show off our moves. Maybe Flint would come over and we could show the muggles what they can only hope to become. The other two boys laughed him off but of course wished for the same thing-a little glory outside of the incestuous Wizarding world.

Harry was about to reply and jump over the shoe counter to get a drink when a booming voice that had tortured his youth resounded through the whole rink. Blaise whirled around in confusion, but Draco rushed to Harry's side to confront the terrible Vernon Dursely.

"Harry! Where are you? We are worried sick!"

"Lies," both Harry and Draco muttered together.

"I'm over here." Harry gave Draco a parting pat on the back and slid to a halt in front of his horrendous uncle who had already started to send away customers just by being there. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not!" Vernon grabbed his nephew by the shoulder and pulled his ear next to his disgusting mouth to inform him, "Petunia has not been hearing good things about this family. They are on the wrong side of the law, she says, and we don't need you to be off on your won so much. We don't need you getting any ideassss."

Harry reached to pull out his wand from his pocket, but Draco yelled a quick "Don't do it" to remind him about the muggles and the Underage Wizarding Laws. Instead, he swallowed to regain his composure and said, "Well, I'm fine, so please do not worry about me. I will be back in time to make dinner."

"Oh, no you won't!" Vernon boomed while throwing Harry over his meaty shoulder with all of his strength. "You are coming with me, and you are never returning to this blasted place ever again!"

"No, stop! Let me go!" Harry launched into a fit of slaps and punches directed at his uncle's back as he was carted out of his favorite place in England. Vernon threw him in the trunk and locked it before whistling to himself as if nothing was wrong. Harry started focusing his energy on busting the trunk's lock with his skates, but after his tenth failed attempt, they stopped at the house on Privet Drive. Vernon manhandled him into the house where he sent him to his bedroom with an umbrella poking into his back.

Petunia gazed on worriedly from the landing and avoided Harry's gaze as he marched past.

"What have you done? You took me away from my friends and one of the few things that makes me happy! You were the nice one!" Petunia shuddered in place while her husband slapped Harry across the cheek.

"How dare you talk to your aunt like that? After all we have done for you..." As they always did when he was angry, Vernon's eyes squinted up and disappeared beneath his rolls of fat.

Harry took the cue, the final straw and drew his hand. Draco's warning still rang in his head, but he would never use magic against the Dursleys. They weren't worth it, They were fearful, though, and Vernon started shaking as he gave Harry one final push into his room and started hurriedly sliding all the locks into place before avoiding the room like a plague for the rest of the day as if Harry could hex him through the door.

Harry collapsed onto his bed out of anger and started planning an escape plan for tomorrow so that he could see Draco again. His last contact with the outside world was Hedwig who flew in empty-handed after having delivered a letter to Ron. He stroked her head but was woken from his calm petting by the sound of a whirring drill outside his window. He rushed to where his uncle was attaching an iron grate and quickly slid up the bottom pane to shake the new prison bars, but one screw was already in place. Vernon sneered at him and started muttering insults as the boy banged against the metal, but he had two screws in and the rest would be easy to attach. Harry fell back onto his bed to find his wand where it had disappeared beneath the blankets but by the time he had it drawn on the window, his uncle was gone.

The distraught boy hid himself beneath his itchy blanket and whispered Lumos to watch as tears pooled on his crossed knees. He was always a hopeful boy, but he had no idea where his savior would come from now.

He counted the days by the number of times Ron's owl, Pig knocked at the window with a letter attached to his leg. Harry always opened it for him but could only fit one hand through the bars to give him a treat instead of two to untie the triple-knotted string.

Someone, presumably Petunia, slid plates of food into his room via the cat door twice a day which he ate while lounging on his bed, wishing for once that he had been like Hermione and purchased his textbooks in advance so that he could finish his summer assignments.

To keep in shape, he developed a workout plan composed of lunges and jumping jacks among other cardio moves to keep his legs ready for the competition in case he managed to escape and actually compete in it. He tracked his daily regimen on scraps of parchment with his remaining ink and polished the wheels on his skates each day. Power naps became his preferred way of sleeping so that he could fit in mini workouts and then sleep them off before starting all over again, but he wished for space to skate around instead of having to run in place to build up his endurance.

On the twenty first day of solitary confinement, Harry awoke to a popping noise as the Malfoys apparated into his room. Without being there for more than a minute, Draco started shaking his friend awake and did not blush as Harry rolled out of bed in only his boxers.

Lucius stood in the corner stoically, perusing Harry's desk and eyeing Hedwig as Draco rambled, "Hey, Harry, the race is today. Get dressed and get your skates and then we're gonna go so that we can register and get our times. Hurry up!" He lightly pushed his admirer to the closet and searched for his skates in a pile of dirty clothes.

"Harry, you're room is quite cramped," Mr. Malfoy droned, but the younger boy could not retort as he hurried to pull on a shirt and pair of football pants. Draco tossed him his glasses from the bedside table with a smile, and they were just about to leave wen someone started knocking at the window.

"Oi, Harry!" Ron shouted from his seat on a broom followed by his two brothers. "What're you doing with that pureblood scum."

Draco whirled around at the insult and pulled his wand on his classmate who did likewise and grabbed onto the metal grate that covered Harry's window. "What did you call me?"

"Get out of here, you pureblood scum. Harry, you haven't responded to my letters in weeks, you have to come with us!"

"Shut up, Weasley! Harry is coming to a race with me now leave us alone."

Harry pulled on a belt and pushed Draco out from in front of the grimy window to address Ron, "I promise I will come home with you tonight, but this race is really important to me! I am so sorry, Ron! If you had come tomorrow, I would've been game, but I can't. If it were-"

"Forget it, Harry. Don't bother coming now." With that, the gingers turned their brooms 180 degrees and jetted off into the English sunrise.

Harry's shoulders sagged as Draco grabbed his hand and asked him if he was ready to apparate. The blond mistaked an exhausted sigh on Harry's part for an expression of agreement and nodded to his father who jerked them into a black hole of light that spun them upside before landing them in front of grey-walled building with slivers of floor-to-ceiling windows with a sign reading **The Switch Blade. **Lucius prodded the boys in the back and led them into a front lobby with glass tables and pictures everywhere of famous skaters. Harry scoured the walls for his parents but only got through looking at half the frames before Lucius was handing them wristbands and pushing them towards a locker room.

In the glistening room with stainless steel lockers and mahogany benches, the boys pulled on the their skates as Lucius surveyed the competition. "Each of you will take a preliminary time trial once we enter the arena. Then they will decide which races to put you in. For the first race, you will be the obvious winners. They stack them, you see. They take the top ten kids and put them in different races and then the next ten and so on until they have all the races filled. Most applicants won't even race." He sneered and eyed a wobbly redhead who could not even stand on his own in his skates. The boy's red hair reminded Harry of Ron, but he shut his eyes and thought of only Draco and how it would feel to race against his friend to win their age group.

"Ready, then?"

The boys nodded and followed their guide into the backstage area of the arena where they would await their turn and warm up. They took slow laps in synchronization and stopped every time they passed to talk to Mr. Malfoy and check when they were slotted to skate. When they were halfway through their fourth lap, Draco slowed to a stop and grabbed Harry by the elbow. "I would want to wish you good luck today, but I know that you will not need it," he said with a straight face as other kids stumbled past in the dark spider house.

"Thank you. Same. You're the best jammer Slytherin has ever had, don't forget that." Harry raised his eyebrows, hoping that the move was flirtatious, but the god did not seem to pick up on it as he patted his partner's back and continued their laps. They passed around the dusty track four more times before Lucius led them to wait in line behind their competition. Even there on a red carpet with ropes on either side leading the entrance of what Harry assumed to be a grand theater, they rolled back and forth to keep their legs warm. Other kids stood with their knees locked to keep from falling over while their mummies patted their nervous cheeks.

"Amateurs," Draco muttered. "This is one of those times I wish I could use magic outside of school. I would love to leviate one of these weaklings."

Harry chuckled as much as he could under the quiet circumstances.

The two awaited their turn with eerie smugness as they caught glimpses of racing kids as they neared the end.

"Father, what if i were to slow down a bit to conserve energy and then use it in my first race to beat the kid that was slotted against me?"

Lucius smacked his sound upside the head with a deadening *crack* and leaned in close to him to mutter, "You jeopardize anything today, and I will disown you. Do you hear me? Do you want Harry to win this?"

Draco skated against one of the ropes to avoid his father and muttered an apology as the surrounding mothers shepherded their little ones from this maniac childbeater. Lucius met them all with an icy glare and kept fingering his cane that held his wand.

An employee at the front of the line called Harry's name and grabbed his wrist to scan his unique bracelet.

"Beat 'em all, Potter," Draco reminded him before clasping hands in a shake that felt oddly platonic to Harry as he skated towards the center of the arena. All around him were red velvet seats with various people in them awaiting their scores. Above was a maze of lights and catwalks that beamed down at him as he skated to one end of the perfectly cemented track. On the walls of the rink were mirrors that he had not noticed when they were waiting. They reflected him at every angle, and he was pleased to notice that he looked confident as usual.

"Harry Potter!" A voice boomed above him. "Aged 12. Racing in the 12-14 age bracket. On your mark, get set, go!" Harry leaned into his first push and then settled into a fast pace to glide towards the other end. He imagined himself as Hermes flying across the parthenon or an ancient Spartan in the 100 meter dash as he attacked the cement with his subpar skates and drew in his elbows for a stop once he crossed a golden finish line to stunned silence instead of the Gryffindor cheers that he was used to. Above him was a black and red clock that displayed his time but quickly changed to show the individual standings in electronic letters.

The voice came back. "Um, wow, Harry Potter has set the event record of 5.9 seconds for 100 meters on this course, putting him in the first spot of Team A. Apologies to Samuel Grain whose time is no longer fast enough to race today. Congratulations, Harry."

The champion nodded in thanks and skated off towards the opposite side where a man with a nametag marked REFEREE eyed him from behind wireless glasses. "You are the son of James and Lily?"

"Yes, sir." Harry did not elaborate, instead looking to the track where Draco was taking one last cleansing breath.

"You skate well, Harry."

"Thank you, sir."

"Is that a friend of yours out there?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'll leave you then. Good luck."

He replied with a thank you but thought to himself, _I don't need luck. I'm Harry Frickin' Potter_ as the announcer started Draco's race.

It had been altogether too long since Harry had watched his crush skate; he understood why muggles liked to watch the Olympics and why the Ancient Greeks had delighted in them so. There seemed to be few things better than watching one of your best friends use their body so lithely. Draco leaned into every push of his leg and bent down low as he crossed the finish line, throwing his muscled arms up in victory once he dug his right foot into the ground to spin around.

"Draco Malfoy has finished in 6.5 seconds, landing him just behind Harry Potter and securing himself a first place spot on Team B." The announcer continued with apologizing to a young hopeful who was now disqualified, but all that was lost on Harry as Draco rushed towards him to grab him a celebratory hug. "We did it! We did it! We're amazing! Merlin! We're amazing!" Harry laughed at his friend's jubilee and was reluctant to pull out of the hug even as Draco wrapped an arm around him to escort him to the next waiting area where Lucius had already staked his claim to three seats.

"You will each race again at ten o'clock. Here is some money for food. After that race will be the finals." He handed Harry a twenty dollar bill and gestured from to exit the mirrored room to find a cafeteria while he whispered to Draco in anger, "How could you let him beat you? Remember what I said! Now, go!" He pushed his son out of the way and recline in his black leather armchair.

Draco rubbed his abused elbow and followed Harry down a lit, tiled hallway to a cafeteria. They waited in line next to boys of varying ages who all politely asked what the boys' times were before turning away in embarrassment at their own times which they refused to share.

"Are you alright, Draco?"

"Yeah," he muttered as he raked an ivory hand through his perfect hair. "Don't mind Father. He just didn't want to bring you, I guess."

The comment caught Harry off guard and he had to stuff his hands in his pockets to avoid lashing out at passerby as his cheeks flushed and he kept his face down to mask his anger. "Well, then, I don't want to be here!"

"No, Harry! I want you here! Don't say that!"

Their argument was cut short as a nice woman at the cafeteria table took the money and handed them two boxes of cereal and their change. They skated back towards the next waiting room and started munching. "Don't ever say that," Draco reminded him through a mouthful of Cheerios. Lucius cocked an eyebrow at the boys but did not say a word until a new guide came to collect them for their races. He nodded his head in encouragement and that was it.

They followed a line of boys their age down the same school-like hallway to queues that were set up with red velvet ropes like the seats in the amphitheater that Lucius started to make his way towards. A girl in a **Switch Blade **tee-shirt led them into their lines and then quickly pulled Harry's group out onto the rink where they lined up along the track.

Harry surveyed the competition like a plot of land: two of them wobbled, one stood stock still, and the other six stood with their arms crossed as if they were going to skate like that. He eyed the golden lines on the cement and started envisioning himself rounding them as the announcer's voice came back. He only listened for the word go and then shot off at what he knew was breakneck speed especially compared to his competition. As usual, he thought of Draco at the finish line and imagined that first Gryffindor race that he had won and rounded two corners without even realizing it. His competition fell behind like cars slipping on an icy road, so it was a smooth finish for him as he kicked it into full gear for the last 100 meters, this time, to cheering.

"Harry Potter has done it again! Setting another record of 29.7 seconds for 400 meters! He will move onto the finals for the 1600 meter race! Congratulations, Mr. Potter!"

The Boy Who Lived tried not to shrug off the compliment as he waved to the audience and left the rink where his competitors were still skating, enjoying their last few seconds of glory. People accosted him at the other side and led him into a mirrored room with speakers that spouted questions at him about his parents and skating ability and favorite color and chosen brand of cereal.

He tried to answer the invisible questions, but kept asking one of his one: "Where's Draco?" but no one responded. Harry slipped into a coma of public relations as the questions continued as they waited for the last race. He checked out his teeth in the mirror and aired himself out with shirt before settling into laps that he skated around the small cubicle in order to stay warm. A guide came to retrieve him and he was finally reunited with Draco and their more worthy competition who could skate perfectly.

"Harry!" Draco exclaimed as he wrapped the boy into a shoulder hug and skated in sync with him back the ampitheater via the red carpet they had lined up on before. "Congrats!"

"To you, too! You're doing great today! What was your time?"

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Potter," Draco scolded him as he leaned against one of the ropes and gave Harry a mean smolder, "but it was 33.3. Trifecta!"

Harry started to laugh at the cute boy's cliched word play but was cut off as Draco jerked his beautiful head towards a pair of twins with eyes of death and raven black hair to match. He gestured for Harry to come in closer which he gladly did to hear the boy whisper, "Those guys are fourteen. The taller one is always winning while his brother is always sabotaging other racers. He hasn't done anything yet today, but he usually strikes at the end when it doesn't matter when he's disqualified."

Harry gulped, but Draco reassured him with a pat on the back as they were once more led onto the glimmering track to the ten lines that formed an ellipse. All ten competitors practically had the announcer's speech memorized, so they all set in on the words "On your mark" and we're beyond ready to go when the time came.

"Go!"

Harry leaned forward to become more aerodynamic and sped through the first 200 in a flash. He imagined his parents skating like this when they were kids. Maybe they met at a place like this although amity was not the word of the day, but shook his head against these thoughts as he pulled into the third lap. He could make out his crush in his peripheral and thought of the day they raced at Hogwarts. He channeled that euphoria into energy as he round the corner and listened to the screams of fans around him.

Then everything stopped! Someone to his left shot out their leg, knocking out four boys in a domino effect, including Draco. Harry righted himself and pulled Draco to standing in a rush of adrenaline and the two skating prodigies kicked in their last fuel reserves. Harry telepathically sent an apology to Draco as he pushed off one last time to cross the finish line in 1:59.4 seconds with Draco finishing at the two minute mark as the announcer said, "Dmitri has been disqualified for tripping four competitors, but his brother continues, and oh! Holy smokes! Harry and Draco recover from a nasty fall to finish first and second, both of them setting course records, one of which was set by their parents respectively! What a day!"

They wrapped each other in a hug and pumped their fists in the air for their newly converted fans before skating to the wings to celebrate in private.

But their celebration was cut short as Lucius hijacked them from the magical arena and dropped Harry back in his room after a quick and nasty apparation. He did not even offer a congratulation before whisking Draco away and leaving Harry alone. He clutched at the empty space where his friend had been and shook in frustrating sobs as he realized that he may never see him again. "I should've let him win! I should've let him win," he repeated over and over again as he lay on his hard wood floor.

* * *

Harry did not see Ron again until he got off the Knight Bus in front of the Leaky Cauldron after blowing up his Aunt Marge. Hermione rushed down the stairs holding an orange cat, exclaiming," Harry! You're here!" as he gathered his bearings and grabbed a room key. She attacked him, with the cat still in her arms, before grabbing his glasses and checking them over for reparable scratches. "I can't believe it! The three of us together again! Thank Merlin you're alright, what with Sirius Black on the loose! I am so glad to see you!" She pulled him over to a graffitied table and summoned a cup of tea for the both of them.

Harry looked around the dank pub with its clouded windows and scruffed up furniture, but nodded his head in greeting to the eclectic clientale before asking, "Where's Ron?"

Hermione pulled her cat into her lap and stroked its tail to avoid the question. "Well, he's around, but he's quite upset with you."

"But I won that competition! I needed to go!"

"Don't blame me, Harry," she snapped. "I don't know what happened between you two. All I know is that he is mad as-"

"How dare you show your face in London, you traitor!" Ron shouted in a deep voice as he stood at the top of the stairs. "Get out! I don't want to see your face!"

"Ron, please forgive me. I had to go. It wasn't about Draco," he lied. "It was about the race. Please, it was weeks ago. I spent the rest of that time locked in my room. I had to blow up my aunt to get out of that house, for Merlin's sake."

"Don't play the pity card, Potter!" Ron snarled as he grabbed sickles from his pocket and started throwing them at his ex-best friend as Fudge entered the room.

"Hello, children," he sung cheerfully. "Harry? A word?" The minister trotted down the stairs and led the boy into a secret room, putting a temporary hiatus on an argument that would never end.


	13. Harry Potter and the Kiss

**AN: Sorry this is late. I am a lazy bum.**

Chapter Thirteen: Harry Potter and the Kiss

Harry Potter perused the tack board on his wall with his arms crossed and biting his lip. His glasses slid down his nose, but he let them pinch his skin without caring. Draco refused to respond to his owls, even when the newest _Hogwarts Howler _had just been released with Harry's name plastered all over it in a way he had never imagined it would be. This was even worse than when the Prophet accused him of lying when Voldemort had returned. He knew that he had, though, and he also knew, thanks to the propechy, that the Dark Lord was after his life. Dumbledore's words rang in his ears as he tacked up the _H__owler _under his other clippings: Neither can reign while the other skates. He would have to beat Voldemort. Harry sighed.

Daily Prophet: Sirius Black Disappeared

Daily Prophet: Sirius Black Disappeared,

Again

**Hogwarts Howler: Harry Potter, Cheater, Puts His Name in Goblet**

_The Quibbler: Interview with Harry Potter_

_Harry Tells All After Merpeople Encounter_

Daily Prophet: Harry Potters Wins Triwizard Cup

_The Quibbler: Remembering Cedric Diggory_

_The Quibbler: Voldemort Awakens from Coma_

**Hogwarts Howler: Hot French Girls Leave**

**_Dumbledore's Army: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Alicia Spinnet, Angelina Johnson, Cormac McLaggen, Dean Thomas, Colin Creevey, Dennis Creevy, Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Ginny Weasley, Katie Bell, Lee Jordan, Lavendor Brown, Neville Longbottom, Nigel Wolpert, Parvati Patil, Romilda Vane, Seamus Finnigan, Anthony Goldstein, Cho Chang, Luna Lovegood, Marietta Edgecombe, Michael Corner, Padma Patil, Terry Boot, Ernie MacMillan, Hannah Abbot, Jason Flinch-Fletchley, Susan Bones, Zacharias Smith, Luca Caruso, Alice Tolipan_**

_The Quibbler: Dumbledore's Army Wins Skate Against Hate Competition_

**Hogwarts Howler: Harry and Cho? Sitting in the... Room of Requirement?**

Daily Prophet: Lucius Malfoy Arrested, Others

And the newest addition: **Harry Potter Gay?** with a picture of Harry and Draco lacing up their skates before a Gryffindor/Slytherin race, both of them in pursuit of the Roller Derby cup.

Besides rumors about his sexuality, Harry had to deal with the news from Dumbledore and figure out what it all meant. Sixth year would bring more skating competitions and new classes to prepare him for training as an auror, but he would also have to focus on preparing to beat one of the best roller skaters who also happened to be the darkest wizard since Grindewald.

Harry put away his box of thumb tacks and admired his bulletin board and the accomplishments it stood for. Although, he was not sure if he could call being gay an accomplishment. It was just a thing. He had pretty much always known, but he had known for sure once the pubescent hormones started kicking in. And then he met Draco. That had him convinced.

The kiss with Cho had been nice although she was crying and flirting with admirers had a certain playfulness to it, but what he had with Draco was real, even though the other boy may not have known it.

The blonde one was one of the few people Harry could be himself around and he was certainly with the person that he spent the most time with. Harry read through the article and laughed at its naivete:

**Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy have always**

**been friends since Harry showed up at the Malfoy's **

**roller rink before their first year, but our sources**

**tell us that there may be something more to the boys'**

**lingering looks nowadays. Their teammates maintain**

**that the boys are not interested in each other. They are **

**simply together frequently because they are both such good **

**skaters. This school year saw the victory of Gryffindor **

**over Slytherin yet again in the derby cup, but the boys were**

**seen after the race, smiling and acting as if everything was**

**fine between them. Cynics say that both heartthrobs are straight,**

**but the pictures coupled with eyewitnesses proves that the boys**

**are more than friends, and we have to wonder, if they act like**

**this in public, what are they like 'behind-the scenes'?**

Harry had long ago decided that his love for Draco would remain unrequited. His Apollo was destined to marry a pureblood princess, maybe Parkinson, and carry on the family name, and Draco seemed alright with that. At least, he didn't talk about it all, so Harry had to assume that no news was good news on that front.

He let Hedwig out of her cage and started polishing the wheels on his skates that had been bought with the winnings from the Triwizard Tournament: dark red leather with golden amber wheels to match his house colors. Hedwig pecked at the window with her foot just as someone popped into the room via apparation.

"Harry!"

The boy rolled over in his bed, dropping his skates to sit up and address his guest. "Hello, Draco, how are-"

"Have you seen the newest Hogwarts Howler? This is bloody insane! If my father were not in...well, this is bloody upsetting! How dare they spread such rumors about us? I mean, they said it themselves, we're just friends. Just friends!"

Harry pulled on his skates and reached out for Draco's hand to pull himself up to standing. "I think that you need to go skating."

Draco shrugged and muttered, "I haven't been skating since school got out. I closed down the rink to the public since my father's..." He didn't need to say it, Harry knew. "The others were upset that they were out of a job, but they just ended up running back to their trust funds, so they'll be okay, but I don't know what I'm gonna do."

"You're going to skate," Harry assured him as they apparated illegally back to the roller rink. Draco launched into some warm up laps, but Harry just swiveled back and forth in the middle of the dusty rink. "How's your mom?"

Draco shrugged, in the middle of his third lap. "She's alright. She's out with Aunt Bellatrix...right now. I'm sorry about Sirius, Harry."

Harry wiped the tears out of his eyes that sprung forth every time someone mentioned his late godfather's name.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up. Let's just skate."

With one last jerk of his sleeve, Harry pushed out of the inner circle and inadvertently right into Draco's waiting arms.

"I am sorry."

Harry started at his love's embrace and attempted to skate backwards out of the awkward encounter but Draco only let him get so far before he held him tight by the elbows and muttered, "The rumors that hurt the most are the ones that contain your deepest secrets. They're a stab in the dark by whoever starts them, but to you, they've cracked the code to your personal safe. Do you understand?"

The Boy Who Lived stared at his skates, nodding yes.

"Do you see how what I'm saying relates to that last issue of the Howler?"

The black-haired boy barely had time to mutter, "Oh, Merlin," before Draco's lips were on his in a slow testing of the waters, pulling away to gauge Harry's reaction before being caught back in the kiss. Harry pushed him backwards until they fall against the edge of the rink with hands exploring hem lines faster than their tongues could move. Draco dug his hands into Harry's back pockets as the other boy tasted both of their tears mixing together. He pulled away.

Draco dragged the back of his hand across his face to interrupt the tears that fell there and whispered, "I'm sorry." He removed his other hand from his love's pocket and slide to the side where they were not within touching distance. "Ever since I heard about you and Cho, I got really jealous. I didn't know what was going on. You were flirting with all these girls and living it up, so I thought I could never have you. I thought you were straight." He laughed through the tears at the notion. "But skating with you was so magnificent, even when it was when we raced against each other. I enjoyed that. And then the Howler came out. Now what are we going to do? Can we really let those git writers be right?"

Harry leaned back on his skates to slide away from the temptation of avoiding this conversation. "We can't let anyone know. It would destroy your reputation, and I don't know how Ron would react to me... I haven't heard from him since the Howler. We'll probably have a good laugh about it later."

Draco nodded with tears still sticking to his cheeks as he reached out a hand for one last kiss before whispering a requited, "I love you."

**AN: Too sudden? Not enough build up? Always open to suggestions. I usually take them into consideration, trust me.**


	14. Harry Potter and the Lucky Number Six

**AN: Again. Sorry this is late. I am a lazy bum.**

Chapter Fourteen: Harry Potter and Lucky Number Six

The two boys skated laps up and down the hallway next to the courtyard with its open walls that looked out on the emptiness that was the deserted fountain area and made this the perfect area to skate around in private. Draco stole a kiss on their twenty ninth lap, but Harry playfully swatted him away and kept skating, gaining a lead. By now, so far along in their skating journey, the boys were practically equal. Even the birds that zoomed in and out of their track area could not slow them down.

After fifteen minutes of sprints like ths, Harry pressed his hands to his kneecaps and rolled to a stop. Draco followed suit and rested his head on his secret boyfriend's shoulder as they listening to the birds chirping. It was times like these that made Harry think that Hogwarts was not actually in England but resided quietly in Eden, protected from the prying eyes of God by Dumbledore's wards.

A bee buzzed next to their juxtaposed ears, so Draco flicked it away and Harry rolled his eyes at the violence as they both asked each other what a bee was doing so far away from the flowers that they knew to reside in the Forbidden Forest.

They settled into a cool down pace, and Harry started to mimic the birds that surrounded them. "Tweet tweet. Twee-eeh! Twee-eeh! Chirp, chirp, chirp." Now it was Draco's turn to roll his eyes. They continued this relaxing gliding back and forth for a few minutes before Ron and Hermione entered the scene, practically holding hands.

Draco pushed away from Harry to eliminate any suspicion whatsoever, steeling himself for the conflict even though Harry had often reminded him that Ron and Hermione meant well. He said that they were just mad at him because he gave the Gryffindor Roller Derby team a run for their money, but even after the lions won the cup every year, the blond still caught Weasel giving him disdainful sneers across the Great Hall and dragging his finger across his neck as if threatening him.

"Hey, Harry. Draco." Ron barely inclined his head in a nodded greeting at the pureblood who responded with a calm, "Hey, guys. How're you?"

"Fine, thank you." Hermione smiled, pulling a stray pen from out of her hair and slipping it into her messenger bag that had been graffitied with the letters SPEW.

"What are you doing with this git, Harry?"

The Boy Who Lived rolled his eyes, and his shoulders shank down as he reprimanded his friend: "He's not a git, and we were just practicing. No harm in that. Draco's gonna practice anyway, so why shouldn't it be with me?"

"He's learning all your tricks, weaknesses! This is giving him an advantage!" Ron started marching away from Hermione towards Draco with his fists clenched in irrational anger.

"Well, then the same could be said for me, but Draco has no weaknesses, so that idea is a load of-"

"You have no weaknesses either," Draco offered up with his hands in his pockets, working at the seams to keep from hitting Ron. Instead of ripping into the ginger, he ripped at threads in his nylon shorts.

A bird flew by and Hermione caught it in her hands, offering it up to the boys, two of whom smiled at the yellow ball of fluff and one of whom merely crossed his arms and spread his legs wide like a cat sinking back to its haunches. The bookworm's thumb ran over the tiny skull covered in sunshine fuzz as she cooed with the chickadee. "Don't see many of these around here. Spring must be coming finally, seeing as that it is June already."

The boys chuckled at the meteorological joke even though the rainy weather of England was usually the subject of many rants of themselves and others.

"Spring started months ago, 'Mione. Don't you look at calendars?"

She sighed, done with correcting Ron's surliness and just glad that he was no longer gallivanting around with that dreaded Lavender girl, and let the birdie fly away above the castle, disappearing behind a turret and then circling around before beginning its descent.

"Harry! Harry!" Colin Creevey run up the hill to jump over the half-hall surrounding the courtyard and waved his hands, holding a camera as usual and panting. A flock of birds flew up in his wake, creating a rainbow free of water to make the perfectly dry day even better. "Dumbledore *WHEEZE* wants to *WHEEZE* see you in *WHEEZE* his office!"

Harry rolled over to the boy, supporting him by the elbows and muttered a thanks as he deposited him on the edge of the wall and sat down himself to unlace his skates. Ron mumbled something about Dumbledore's too frequent absences while Hermione tended to the asmathic fifth year and Draco took off his own skates.

"Let me come with you."

"Don't bother. I can find the office on my own."

"No, come on, it will be fine." Draco jerked his head in the direction of his Gryffindor enemy, and Harry finally relented. They bid farewell to the other Gryffindors. Once out of sight, Draco slung his arm around Harry's shoulder, but the shorter boy shrugged it off as they came across a gaggle of Hufflepuffs so lost in laughter that they did not notice the passing boys.

"Harry, there's something I need to tell you."

"Oh, okay." They kept walking. "Wanna eat dinner together? Meet at the astronomy tower after I talk to Dumble-"

Draco seized in pain and clutched at his forearm. "Agh," he moaned with a wince, doubling over at the stinging he felt. His eyes burned closed, and his face drained in concentrating on not black out.

"Draco! No! No!" Harry jumped back initially but then crept forward to help his friend who pushed him away in the direction of the Golden Phoenix door around the corner.

"Go! I've just been feeling sick!"

"Draco, what is going on? If that's the Dark Ma-"

"Imperio," he groaned as he set off in the opposite direction, his arm starting to burn less. The spell lasted just long enough to get Harry to the bottom of the stairs. Draco cast Stupefy and then broke into a run.

The marble stairs circled the unconscious Harry up to the Headmaster's office. The elder immediately rushed over to the crumpled student and mumbled a series of wandless spells to revive him, but when Harry came to, he had no recollection of what had happened in the past five minutes. Dumbledore sank back in his desk chair after offering the boy a drink of water and steepled his hands. "Are you alright?"

"Yes."

"Do you think that someone is trying to hurt you?"

"Of course! Voldemort's still out there!"

Harry rubbed his head and adjusted his glasses. Being knocked out didn't bother him. He had been through that before and would be through it again even once Voldemort was defeated because the Roller Derby world took concussions too lightly sometimes. Anyway (the fall had left him a bit muddled in the head), what bothered him was not knowing who had done it.

Dumbledore broke him from his inflection with a question that would start off the night that would change his life forever. But not to worry, Harry was used to dealing with life-changing days. "Harry, can I trust you to fulfill my requests no matter how outlandish they seem?"


End file.
